He said on Sunday that Egypt is currently the leading world dates producer with an annual 1.8 million tons of production.
He added that the production of Iran and Saudi Arabia are so close together as the FAO sometimes announces Iran as the world’s second biggest dates producer and sometime puts Saudi Arabia at the second place.
Rashid Farrokhi, however, said that Iran is the leading country in terms of growing different dates varieties which responds to different tastes.
He stated that Algeria, Iraq, Pakistan and Sudan are the third to seventh world major producers of dates respectively following Egypt, Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Noting that some 25 to 30 percent of Iranian dates are exported, he said that Iran exports around $400 million worth of the product annually.
Some 300,000 tons of Iranian dates valued at $350 million were exported to target countries last year, he said.