Tehran, Iran, March 12
By Kamyar Eghbalnejad – Trend:
Iran plans to increase the value of its exports of date to $1 billion over the next five years, an official told Trend.
The head of the National Association of Iran's Dates, Mohsen Rashid-Farrokhi, has told Trend that dates will replace pistachio in exports in the future. The decision is made due to water shortage in the country.
Saying that Iran over the last year produced 1.2 million tons of dates, he said that the country exported worth of $350 million of the product.
Over the first ten months of the current fiscal year (starting March 20) Iran exported 109,000 tons of pistachios worth of $972 million.
The value of total agricultural exports of Iran hit $4.542 billion during the 10-month period.The agricultural products shared 4.5 percent of Iran’s overall non-oil exports in terms of volume and 12.3 percent in terms of value.