Hossein Forouzan, secretary of Iran’s High Council of Free Trade-Industrial and Special Economic Zones, said effective action against smuggling required coordinated efforts by all relevant authorities, alongside measures to facilitate legitimate business activity.
He made the remarks at a meeting of the council’s deputies and the managing directors of free trade and special economic zone organizations, attended by Habibollah Haghighi, the president’s special representative and head of the Central Headquarters for Combating Smuggling of Goods and Foreign Currency.
Forouzan said the meeting provided an opportunity to exchange experience, assess operational challenges facing the zones and develop joint solutions to improve business conditions and strengthen anti-smuggling measures.
The participation of zone managers and private-sector representatives, he added, was intended to ensure that businesses could raise their concerns directly and that officials could draw on the headquarters’ expertise to remove administrative obstacles and improve implementation procedures.
Smuggling threatens production and investment
Forouzan said the council and the central anti-smuggling headquarters shared a common objective: protecting the national economy, supporting domestic production and creating conditions conducive to economic growth.
Smuggling, he stressed, directly harms manufacturers and businesses, potentially weakening production facilities and undermining the development potential of the country’s free trade and special economic zones.
He said zone authorities viewed efforts to curb illicit trade as integral to protecting investment, strengthening domestic production and safeguarding the wider economy.
Effective enforcement, he added, should go hand in hand with closer institutional cooperation and measures to facilitate lawful commercial activity, preventing the emergence of informal channels that damage the economy.
Clarifying import procedures and supporting industrial inputs
Forouzan also highlighted the need to resolve uncertainty surrounding the import procedures for certain goods and address problems affecting commercial operations.
He called for the use of the legal capacities of free trade and special economic zones to establish workable arrangements for importing essential goods and production inputs. Such measures, he said, should protect the rights of cargo owners, prevent unnecessary additional costs and help ensure that economic benefits remain within the country.
Concluding his remarks, Forouzan expressed hope that the meeting would lead to stronger cooperation between the relevant institutions, faster removal of barriers to business activity and more effective support for production and investment in the zones.