Tehran, Iran, May 28
By Mehdi Sepahvand –- Trend:
Iran plans to increase the amount of agricultural and food products to Russia by almost 100 percent in 2017 compared to last year, said Mehdi Tafreshi, head of Food Producers Cooperative and deputy head of Tehran House of Industry and Mine.
Iran’s food export to Russia stood at $2 billion in 2016 and the plan is to make it reach $4 billion this year, Tafreshi told Trend May 27.
"Right now one of the biggest hurdles for Iranian exporters is the high tariffs. We are in talks with related officials to amend these tariffs so that our exporters would be able to compete with rivals in neighboring countries such as Turkey," he said.
"One of our goals is to find our way to CIS countries such as the Republic of Azerbaijan. We are sure to increase our share of the food market in Azerbaijan," he added.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Tafreshi said the 2016 implementation of Iran’s nuclear deal_ aka Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)_ has positively influenced the food market.
"During the sanctions time Iranian producers had a hard time procuring immediate goods which they had to import from abroad. But after the JCPOA, not only were these problems solved, the price and quality of such goods changed for us because the world market opened to us and we had a greater range to choose from. This improved our competitiveness."