Transportation infrastructure insufficient for agricultural products export

Ali Hosseini also mentioned the country's need for refrigerated products containers.

He announced the export of various agricultural products in the form of sales at the borders and the transfer of goods with the help of the trucks of the target countries and reminded, “What is important in providing the number of refrigerated products containers is to streamline the export of perishable agricultural products.”

According to him, despite the existence of transportation companies in the country, the appropriate infrastructure has not been formed and the concept of logistics is still not implemented properly in these companies. Therefore, the export of various agricultural products is not done in an organized and structured manner.

“Perhaps it can be explained that we do not have a large transportation company that can support the export of agricultural products according to the full annual plan, and most companies enter on a seasonal basis”, he stated.

President Hassan Rouhani, on Thursday, inaugurated the first phase of Iran’s biggest agricultural products export terminal constructed with an investment of 7.2 trillion rials (about $171 million) in the northern Mazandaran province through video conference.

Put into operation in the 51st series of inauguration ceremonies in the current Iranian calendar year (started on March 20, 2020), the terminal is covering 31,000 hectares of land in the city of Jouybar.

Marketing, exporting products, creation and introduction of Iranian brands in global markets, reforming the distribution system and regulation of the market of agricultural products are reported to be among the primary goals of the mentioned export terminal.

The value of Iran’s agricultural products export has risen 8.4 percent during the first ten months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20, 2020 – January 19, 2021), compared to the same period of time in the past year, according to an official with the Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration (IRICA).

Mehrdad Jamal Orounaqi, the IRICA deputy head for technical and customs affairs, put the value of exported products at $4.9 billion in the ten-month period of the present year.

The official said the weight of agricultural products exported in the mentioned period has risen 25.9 percent to stand at 7.085 million tons.

He said that Iran had exported 5.6 million tons of agricultural products worth $4.5 billion during the first ten months of the previous year.

Details of agricultural exports in the period under review show that 2.4 million tons with a value of more than $2.1 billion are allocated to the 10 major agricultural products, which in terms of value pistachio is at the top of them.

Of this figure, the share of pistachios with fresh or dried skin is 147,000 tons worth more than $920 million, and the export of fresh or dried pistachio kernels is about 15,000 tons worth more than $170 million.

According to Orounaqi, eight countries were the export destinations of the 10 major exported products which shows that there is a wider distribution than before in the export of these data-x-items between countries.

Iran exported over $5.8 billion worth of agricultural and foodstuff products in the previous Iranian calendar year (ended on March 19, 2020), the Head of Agriculture Ministry’s Planning and Economic Affairs Department Shahrokh Shajari has announced.