Tehran, Iran, Aug. 12
By Mehdi Sepahvand –- Trend:
Iran is the world’s biggest country for producing sturgeon (fish from which caviar is derived) and trout, according to Head of Iran Fisheries Organization Hassan Salehi.
Last fiscal year (which ended March 20), Iran took giant steps by producing nearly 1.1 million tons of fishery products, he said, IRNA news agency reported August 12.
According to Salehi, 54 percent of last year’s fishery was caught from the sea, while the rest was farmed products, for which Iran is the biggest producer in the region.
Last fiscal year, Iran exported 120,000 tons of fisheries, making $412 million, according to the official.
Elsewhere he said Iran has a 100,000-tons order from Russia for shrimps. He added that last fiscal year Iran produced 160,000 tons of trout and exported 10,000 of it.
On the same day, Hossein Abdollahi, deputy head of the organization, said Iran can farm up to 10 million tons of fisheries at seas.
Iran used to produce 250 tons of caviar at the Caspian Sea before littoral states banned doing so for a period of five years.
Abdollahi also said Iran produces 16 percent of all trout produced in the world.
Iran in June said Poland had expressed interest in importing trout fish (weighting 1.1 kilograms each) from Iran's sector of the Caspian Sea.
Iran’s annual fisheries output has hit 1 million tons, Mohammad Pourkazemi, head of Fisheries Science Research Center, said in June, adding “This counts for a little less than one percent of the global fisheries production which stands at 123 million tons.”
Iran plans to export $450-$500 million worth of fisheries in the current fiscal year (started March 2017), Isa Golshahi, an official with the Iranian Fisheries Organization, said back in May.
Iran exported 600 tons of fishery products to Russia in the first quarter of 2017, he said, adding that the figure was equal to Iran’s total fishery exports in 2016.
About 200,000 Iranians work in about 70,000 aquaculture and fishing centers.