Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 25
By Khalid Kazimov - Trend:
The price of poultry has declined sharply in Iran as Iraq has stopped importing poultry from the neighboring country.
"Iraqi officials have announced that the export of poultry must be stopped for two weeks," Mehr quoted Mohammad Yousefi, the head of Iran's trade union for broiler breeders, as saying Nov. 25.
He said that the Iraqi officials have made the request due to security reasons regarding an upcoming religious ritual to be held in early December in Shia populated cities to mark a Shia imam's death anniversary.
He further added that the export of poultry to Afghanistan has also been stopped. However he did not provide details about the dissection.
According to Yousefi hens were sold in public markets at 44950 rials ($1,950 dollars according to the Iranian central bank's official exchange rate) per kilo Nov 24.
Iran produces 2 million tons of poultry and 900,000 tons of egg annually.
Iran exported about 13,000 tons of poultry and 22,000 tons of egg in the first three months of current fiscal year, started on March 21.
Earlier this year following a two-month ban imposed bay Baghdad on poultry imports from Iran due to an outbreak of reports regarding the highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu virus in some Iranian farms, Baghdad lifted the ban on August 10.