Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 14
By Fatih Karimov - Trend:
Iran hit a record high in pistachio production and export, the country's agriculture ministry official Ali Mohseni said.
Mohseni said that 235,000 metric tons of pistachio was produced in the current Iranian fiscal year, which started on March 21, 2014, showing a 17-percent growth compared to the preceding year, Iran's ISNA news agency reported on March 14.
Iran is the largest exporter of pistachio in the world and the second largest producer next to the US, he said.
The country exported 171,119 metric tons f pistachio, worth $1.5 billion, in the first 11 months of the current Iranian fiscal year, showing 71 percent growth both in weight and value compared to the year before, he noted.
Iran was the largest producer of pistachio by 2013, but got passed over by the United States.
Iran exports over 50 percent of its pistachio output annually. The country's export destinations include Russia, China, Iraq and Persian Gulf littoral states.
Iran exported $5.2 billion of food and agricultural products and imported $13.2 billion of the products in the previous Iranian calendar year, according to the Iranian Customs Administration statistics.
Food and agricultural trade accounted for 20.2 percent of the country's total non-oil trade in the past Iranian calendar year.
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