Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 3
By Umid Niayesh - Trend:
Iran has removed ban on export of fish feed, Mahmoud Bazari, director of the Trade Promotion Organization’s Exports Bureau, said.
The press office of the Trade Promotion Organization (TPO) quoted Bazari as saying that the decision was made after several meetings of governmental and private sector organizations of the fishery sector.
He added that based on the new decree the export of fish feed will be possible after receiving the approval of the country’s Fisheries Organization.
Earlier in July the Iranian government banned the export of 18 agricultural products “until further notice.”
These items included corn, wheat, flour, barley, oat, oilseeds, unprocessed oil, palm oil, alfalfa, straw and wheat straw, fish meal, bran, soybean meal, press cakes, fish feed, additives for fish feed, rye and sorghum.
The move came after the Iranian minister of industry, mine and trade on June 20 banned the import of 1,339 commodities categorized as "non-essential goods with domestic counterparts".
The decisions came as a move to save foreign currency, after the Iranian rial plunged to a record low against the US dollar on the unofficial market after President Donald Trump in May withdrew from the nuclear deal with Tehran.
Earlier, Arash Nabizadeh, the managing director of Cold Water Fish Farmers of Iran said that the Islamic Republic was exporting some 15,000 tons of fish feed annually at a value of $1-1.2 per each kilogram.
Since 2015, Iran has reportedly been exporting fishery products, including shrimp, trout, other varieties of fish, and canned products to a number of countries in the region, including Russia.
Iran Fisheries Organization has defined projects in the fields of aquaculture, fishing, processing, marketing and trade, for which it supports domestic and foreign investments.
Iran’s fishery output reached 1.15 million tons in the fiscal year that ended March 2018. Iran’s fishery sector aims to reach the planned output of 1.6 million tons by 2022, under the sixth five-year economic development plan (39 percent more than the current level).
The country’s overall fishery exports reached 123,000 tons, worth $500 million in the last fiscal year. The figure for the fiscal year to March 20, 2017 accounted for $412 million.
