Baku, Azerbaijan, April 13
By Khalid Kazimov - Trend:
Iran has imported about 29,000 tons of rice from the US during winter, statistics released by Iran's Customs Administration suggests.
Iran imported the mentioned amount of rice worth at $34 million from the US within four months from November 22 to March 20.
In total, Iran imported 740,000 tons of rice over the last Iranian calendar year (ended March 20). Therefore, the amount of rice Iran imported from US over the last year equals to four percent of its total rice imports.
Meanwhile, Iran's rice imports fell by 40 percent over the last year compared to the presiding year.
Over the last year Iran barred importing rice due to excessive amount of rice stored in the country. However, later in the same year the country's agriculture ministry lifted the ban on rice imports.
Over the last Iranian calendar year, the country imported $41.5 billion worth of goods, 22.5 percent less year on year. The volume of country's imports accounted for 35.1 million tons, indicating 18.5 percent fall.
The most important imported goods by Iran were: livestock corn worth $1.4 billion with 3.4 percent share of overall imports, wheat ($867 million, a two percent share), soybean ($728 million, 1.8 percent share), rice ($680 million, 1.64 percent) and soybean meal ($672 million, 1.62 percent).