Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 26
By Fatih Karimov – Trend:
Some 199,667 tons of agricultural products worth over $182.172 million were exported from customs of Iran's north western city of Astara in the first 11 months of the current fiscal year(March 20, 2016-Feb. 20), an Iranian official said.
Iran’s agricultural products' export through Astara checkpoint increased by 15 percent in terms of value year-on-year, Iraj Shiarkar, an official with the agriculture ministry said, the Iranian official IRNA News Agency reported Feb. 26.
Azerbaijan, Russia, Georgia and Ukraine as well as Central Asian countries were the main destinations for the exported products, he added.
Some 135,793 tons of agricultural products were also imported to the country via Astara from Russia and Georgia in the aforementioned period, Shiarkar said, adding that the figure indicates a rise by 39 percent compared to the same period of preceding year.
During this period the transit of agricultural products via Astara customs stood at 27,999 tons, no change compared to the preceding year.
He said that 34 kinds of agricultural products including kiwi fruit, potato, onion, melon, dates, pepper, carrot, raisins, cabbage, apple, cucumber, vegetables, grapes, watermelon, cherry, lemon, tea and pistachio were exported through the custom, meanwhile 16 kinds of various agricultural products including banana, millet, sunflower seed kernel, safflower, flaxseed, peas, sugar beet pulp and bran as well as MDF boards and woods were imported during the 11-month period.
Astara is located in the north east of Gilan province and its customs ranked 1st in the suitcase trade for land border.
It is on the top of the list of exporters among those located on north borders.