More than 3.51 million tons of agricultural and food products worth $3.15 billion were exported from Iran during the first half of the current Iranian year (March 21-Sept. 22), registering a 27.1% growth in value compared with last year's corresponding period.
The growth is an all-time high, according to the latest report released by the National Agriculture and Water Strategic Research Center, which draws on data provided by the Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration.
Agrifood exports accounted for 6.2% and 13.6% of the total volume and value of Iran's non-oil exports of 56.64 million tons worth $23.12 billion respectively over the period, the news portal of Iran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture reported.
The exports mainly included fruits worth $583 million, vegetables worth $564 million, saffron worth $151 million and fish worth $117 million, accounting for 18.5%, 17.9%, 4.8% and 3.7% of the total value of agrifood exports respectively.
Iraq, Afghanistan, the UAE, Pakistan, Russia, India, Germany, Turkmenistan, Turkey and Kuwait were the biggest export destinations in a descending order, as around 81.6% of agrifood exports went to these eight countries.
Each ton of agrifood exports was valued at $896 on average, which is 120% more than the price of each ton of non-oil exports ($417) over the period.
Imports Down by 6.5%
Imports of agrifood products during the same period stood at more than 9.62 million tons valued at close to $5.23 billion, which shows a 6.5% decrease in value compared with the corresponding period of the preceding year.
The imports accounted for 59.3% and 23.9% of the total volume and value of Iran’s total non-oil imports of 16.22 million tons worth $22.18 billion respectively.
The main imported agrifood products included corn ($971 million), rice ($967 million), soybeans ($705 million), vegetable oils ($462 million), red meat ($358 million), oilcake ($249 million), fruits ($242 million) and barley ($219 million), accounting for 18.3%, 18.2%, 13.3%, 8.7%, 6.8%, 4.7%, 4.6% and 4.1% of all agrifood imports during the six months respectively.
The biggest exporters to Iran were India ($897 million), Switzerland ($700 million), the UAE ($496 million), Singapore ($439 million) the Netherlands ($371), the UK ($360 million), Brazil ($227 million), Turkey ($203 million), Russia ($197 million) and Pakistan ($173 million).
The above-mentioned countries accounted for nearly 76.7% of Iran's total agrifood imports.
Each ton of agrifood imports was valued at around $550, which was 59.8% less than the price for each ton of imported non-oil products over the same period ($1,368).
The above data show Iran recorded an agrifood trade deficit of close to $2.15 billion in the six-month period, which shows a 32.6% improvement year-on-year.
