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Iran’s wheat supply 90% met

Business Materials 10 April 2016 17:41 (UTC +04:00)

Tehran, Iran, April 10

By Mehdi Sepahvand - Trend:

Iran's wheat supply has reached 90 percent of the needed amount and the country is expected to be independent of imported wheat for the current year, according to Esmail Esfandiarpour, an Agriculture Ministry official in charge of wheat supply.

The official said that Iran's total harvested wheat should reach 12 million tons at the end of the agricultural year, IRIB news agency reported April 10.

He further said the government will buy 9 to 9.5 million tons of the harvested wheat, with a 13 percent rise compared to the amount bought last year.

This year over six million hectares of land was cultivated with wheat, 2.17 million hectares of which was artificially irrigated and the rest naturally.

Iran plans to ban the imports of wheat, starting from March 2016, semi-official Tasnim news agency reported Feb. 1.

In a letter to Industry, Mining, and Trade Minister Mohammad Reza Nematzadeh, the Islamic Republic's agriculture minister, Mahmoud Hojjati announced that the ban will be imposed from the beginning of the current Iranian fiscal year (March 20).

The letter reads that there is no need for wheat import in the next fiscal year.

Wheat shared 2.9 percent of Iran's $33.843 billion worth of overall imports during the first 10 months of past Iranian fiscal year (March 21, 2015-Jan. 21, 2016).

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