BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 19. Iran’s import of sunflower oil has seen a significant growth in both value and volume during the first six months of the current Iranian year (March 21 through September 22, 2023), compared to the same period of the previous year, Trend reports.
The data from the Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration (IRICA) shows that Iran imported about $813 million worth of sunflower oil (514,000 tons) in the first half of this year.
This is an increase of 25 percent in value and 49 percent in volume from the previous year, when Iran imported over $650 million worth of sunflower oil, weighing approximately 345,000 tons.
Sunflower oil is one of the various vegetable oils that Iran imports to meet its domestic demand for cooking oils. Other vegetable oils include soybean, corn, palm, and others.
In the first half of this year, Iran imported a total of 964,000 tons of various vegetable oils worth approximately $1.6 billion. This means that sunflower oil accounted for about 53 percent of the total volume and 51 percent of the total value of vegetable oil imports in this period.
Iran produces and imports more than 2 million tons of cooking oils every year, but it only consumes about 1.5 million tons of them. The surplus is stored as essential products to ensure food security and stability. Most of the cooking oils are imported in raw form, which amount to 1.2 million tons per year on average, and then refined and packaged domestically.
Cooking oils are not the only essential products that Iran imports. The country also imports other staple foods such as wheat, barley, corn, rice, sugar, tea, etc. In the first five months of this year (March 21 through August 22, 2023), Iran imported 8.85 million tons of essential products worth $6 billion. This is a decrease of 13.5 percent in value and 7.5 percent in volume from the previous year, when the country imported 9.57 million tons of essential products worth $6.93 billion.
The import of essential products is a part of the overall import of goods by Iran. In the first half of this year (March 21 through September 22, 2023), Iran imported 17.6 million tons of goods worth $30.4 billion. This is an increase of 11.6 percent in value and 6.89 percent in volume from the previous year, when Iran imported 16.47 million tons of goods worth $27.24 billion.