Azerbaijan, Baku, Feb.6/ Trend F.Milad /
Some 120,000 tons of Indian rice have arrived at Iranian ports. The rice will be offered at a price of 29,500 rials ($2.4 based on the official rate of USD) per kilo on the free market, the ISNA News Agency reported.
It was announced last month that Iran plans to import 170,000 tons of rice from India in the near future in order to lower the price on the market.
Just in a four-month period from August 22 to December 20, requests for importing 2,042,000 tons of rice had been registered.
This is while according to Mehdi Kabuli, an official with the country's Agricultural Jihad Ministry, Iran needs to import 500,000 tons of rice each year.
Iran plans to produce over 2.4 million tons of rice in the current Iranian calendar year, the ISNA News Agency quoted Kabuli as saying.
The annual rice consumption in Iran stands around 2.8 million tons so we only need to import less than 500,000 tons of rice this year, he said.
Referring to the fact that Iran is currently importing more than the country's needs, he went on to note that the agriculture ministry plans to store the rice for the future and there is no need for farmers to worry.
"The quality and price of the Iranian rice is really reasonable, so the farmers can easily sell their products," he added.
Based on reports, Iran imported 775,000 tons of rice valued at $758 million, just in the first eight months of the current Iranian calendar year.
Compared to the same time last year, the figures show a 12.01 per cent increase in terms of value and 2.35 per cent decrease in terms of volume.
India, the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan were the main exporters of rice to Iran.
Iranian Deputy Agricultural Jihad Minister Jahangir Porhemmat said last month that Iran will reach self-sufficiency in rice production in the next Iranian calendar year (to start March 20).
According to the Agriculture Jihad ministry's plan, Iran was supposed to reach self-sufficiency in the rice production field by the end of current Iranian calendar year (March 19, 2013), but officials announced in November, 2012, that the plan needs some more three years to be completed.