Azerbaijan, Baku, Oct.28/ Trend G.Mehdi/
Iran exported food products to 70 countries in the previous Iranian calendar year, which ended on March 19, ISNA quoted secretary of Iranian food industries union Abolhassan Khalili as saying.
Last year, some $1.7 billion worth of food products were exported, he said.
The figure was just around $25 million in the calendar year which ended in March 2004, he noted.
Some 175,000 Iranian individuals are working in the food industry, he said.
In June, the head of the Iranian association of food industries Mohammad Hosseini told IRNA that if the government supports exporters, the figure of exports would be increased to $5 billion per year.
This is while some 50 percent of the country's food industry units are inactive and the rest are in operation with only 30-50 percent of their capacity, he said.