About 12,000 tons of rice have been imported into Iran via Bushehr Port from India, Mohammad Shakibi-Nasab, an official with the Bushehr Ports and Maritimes Organization, said on Wednesday.
Some 45,000 tons of rice were imported via Bushehr Port during the last Iranian year that ended on March 19, 2020.
Abbas Tavakkoli, the head of Rice Importers Association, said recently that as much as 500,000 tons of imported rice have been piled up at customs terminals due to complications associated with the provision of foreign currency from the export earnings of non-oil products.
Tavakkoli said rice is a perishable food item and traders will face serious challenges if their shipments remain in storage on customs premises for longer.
“Imported rice is the staple of six low-income deciles; it was the only item whose allocated subsidy reached the target group of consumers. The removal of rice from the list of subsidized imports was a misguided measure,” he was quoted as saying by IRIB News.
His statements came after the government decided to no longer allocate subsidized foreign currency at the rate of 42,000 rials per US dollar for rice import.
The decision to discontinue the allocation of subsidized foreign currency for rice imports comes, as domestic rice production has reached levels, officials say, that breaks Iran free from the need to import rice amid abundant rainfalls in the current fiscal year (started March 20).
A total of 2.9 million tons of rice were produced in the country during the last Iranian year (March 2019-20), registering close to 45% increase compared with the previous year, according to the director general of Agriculture Ministry’s Grains and Essential Goods Bureau.
“This increase in rice output is because of favorable weather and heavy precipitations during February-March 2019, due to which land under rice cultivation increased by 38% to reach 834,000 hectares,” Faranak Aziz-Karimi was quoted as saying by IRNA.
Latest figures released by the Statistical Center of Iran show per capita rice consumption in the country stands at 35 kilograms.
The northern Gilan and Mazandaran provinces together account for 71% of Iran’s rice production, according to figures released in a recent report published by the Statistical Center of Iran.
