Exports of Dates Rise

Over 171,000 tons of dates worth $167 million were exported from Iran during the nine months to Dec. 22, registering an 18% and 23% growth in value and weight respectively compared with last year’s corresponding period, Deputy Agriculture Minister Abdolmehdi Bakhshandeh said. Date production reached 1.2 million tons in the last Iranian year (March 2016-17), making Iran the second largest cultivator of the crop in the world, after Egypt. Iran was the world’s top exporter in that year, IRNA reported.