Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 7
By Fatih Karimov - Trend: Iran will export 120 trillion rials (about $3.5 million) of farmed caviar by the end of the current Iranian fiscal year (March 20, 2015).
Hassan Salehi, head of Iran's Fishery Organization, said the country will export 2.5 million metric tons of caviar by the end of the current year, Iran's ISNA news agency reported Jan. 7.
He predicted that caviar production will increase by 60 percent compared to the previous year.
Iranian caviar is exported to European countries, Caspian Sea states, Persian Gulf states, and the US, he noted.
Iran Fisheries Organization's Director for Caviar Affairs Mahmoud Assadollahi said in October 2013 that Iran currently produces less than 20 metric tons of wild caviar annually.
"If the illegal fishing continues, Iran's wild caviar fish would become extinct in eight years," he said.
It was announced on September 25, 2013 that five Caspian Sea region countries have agreed to sign a memorandum of understanding to save the sea's caviar stock.
Turkmenistan has prepared the draft of the MoU.
The MoU follows the 2012 agreement based upon which the region's countries agreed not to fish caviar fish for five years.
Currently no country is fishing caviar fish in the Caspian Sea.
The Iranian Fishery Organization Director Gholamreza Razeqi previously said the country's caviar output is projected to reach three metric tons in the current Iranian calendar year.
Edited by CN