A private-sector-funded International Rice Trade Centre and Export Terminal (ICRIR) has been inaugurated in northern Iran in a bid to cut the intermediaries off the production and supply chain.
First Vice President Es'haq Jahangiri opened the centre last week in the northern city of Amol, in Mazandaran Province.
The center has been established with private investment amounting to over 1 trillion rials ($8.58 million) over 17 hectares of land aimed at eliminating intermediaries in the production and distribution chains of rice and find international markets from Iranian rice.
The first development phase of the center will help create 2,000 jobs. The upcoming phases include the establishment of a modern sorting and packaging factory with an annual capacity of 24,000 tons, establishment of a rice processing factory and establishment of a tourism complex, among others.
Iranians consume more than 3 million tons of rice each year. The deficit between domestic production and demand is imported from the UAE, India, Pakistan, Thailand, Turkey and Iraq, according to Financial Tribune.
Every year and during the rice harvest season, the government bans rice imports in support of local farmers and domestic production.
The Ministry of Industries, Mining and Trade has recently lifted its seasonal ban on rice imports.