Iran’s export of agri-food products in the seven-month period ending on October 22, 2019 reached a total of 2.794 billion, says a government official.
Abdolmehdi Bakhshandeh, an Iranian deputy agriculture minister, said on Thursday that the country had exported a total of 3.582 million tons of food and agricultural products since the start of the current calendar year in March.
Bakhshandeh said the value of the exports accounted for 11.42 percent of the total shipments from Iran excluding crude.
The destination countries mostly included neighbors and countries like Germany, India and Vietnam, he said.
Agri-food imports, however, was around three times the exports in weight terms with 13.690 million tons. The imports accounted for nearly 30 percent of the value of all shipments arriving in Iran, or $7.459 billion, said the official.
The major agri-food items exported from Iran between late March and late October included vegetables, fresh and processed tomato, onion, garlic, potato and apple, said Bakhshandeh.
The official added that dairy products accounted for the highest share of the income driven from the exports in the seven-month period with nearly $400 million and 267,000 tons in value and volume terms, respectively. The top dairy products exported from Iran were cheese, kashk, milk, cream, ice-cream and yogurt, he said.
Pistachio, vegetables, tomato and saffron were other popular export items on the list, said Bakhshandeh.
The deputy minister did not elaborate on figures recorded in previous years. However, government reports and other studies have suggested that agri-food exports from Iran have been on the rise, especially since the United States imposed a series of tough sanctions on the country’s sale of oil.
Iranian authorities have lowered tariffs on export of various agricultural products as the government seeks to compensate losses suffered in crude exports and allow more hard currency to arrive in the country.