Iran agricultural and food exports have hit a record 8% rise in comparison to the previous year.
Data released by the National Agriculture and Water Strategic Research Center of Iran’s Chamber of Commerce show agricultural and food exports rose 7.9% more during the last eight months of the current Persian year (April-November 2018) compared to the same period last year.
“More than 4.5 billion dollars worth of agricultural and food products were exported during the last eight months,” according to the report which says “they make up 14.5% of non-oil exports”.
It’s also the highest amount of exports during the last six years, the study shows.
The study highlights that “fruit, vegetable, milk and other dairy products, saffron and fish” are the main exported items.
Iraq has topped the target market of these products with nearly 40% of the exported goods making their way to Iran’s neighbour.
The figures also reveal how Iranian businessmen seek to dominate the regional markets with Afghanistan, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Pakistan, Russia, India, Turkey and Turkmenistan being the next markets after Iraq. A small 2.2% of Iranian agro exports are also destined for Vietnam in South East Asia . Germany is the only European country where 1.1% of the Iranian goods are exported.
At the same time, Iran has imported 4.5% less than the previous year. "Agricultural products such as maize, rice and soybeans worth more than $6 billon were imported which make up only 20% of all the country's imports," reads the document.