It is well over a year that sugar imports were banned due to domestic producers’ complaints. Yet according to a report by Reuters, about 150,000 tons of Brazilian sugar was imported in the days following the nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers on July 14. According to Reuters, Government Trading Corporation of Iran has purchased three cargos of raw sugar from Brazil in the past two weeks. However, the head of Iran Sugar Association, Bahman Danayi, dismissed Reuters’ report as false and said: “Statistics by Customs Administration and the Sugar Association show that no sugar has been imported.” “The government is going to import 300,000 tons of sugar as strategic supply until the end of September, but the sugar import ban will still be in effect,” Eghtesad News quoted Danayi as saying. Deputy minister of industries, mining and trade, Mojtaba Khosrotaj, said on Saturday that :”The Ministry of Agriculture is in charge of issuing permits for the import of agricultural products, and no imports can take place without the ministry’s permission.”
