TEHRAN- The export of apples from West Azarbaijan province in the northwest of Iran has risen by six folds in the current Iranian calendar year (began on March 21, 2021), as compared to the previous year, a provincial official announced.

Hossein Sadeqi, the deputy governor-general of the province for economic affairs, said that 221,000 tons of apples worth $60 million have been exported from the province in this year.

He also said that 300,000 tons of apples are currently kept in the cold storage facilities of the province.

As previously announced, by the province’s former deputy governor-general for economic affairs, West Azarbaijan provided 60 percent of the apples exported from the country in the past Iranian calendar year.

And as announced by head of the Central Organization for Rural Cooperatives of Iran, the country exported 700,000 tons of apples in the past year.             

Saying that Iranian apple has been exported to Russia and Eurasian Economic Union (UAEU)’s member countries in the past year, Ali Tahmasbi said export of apple has had a proper status in the recent years.

Tahmasbi had said that 50 percent of the exported apples were produced in the northwestern West Azarbaijan province.

He also put the country’s apple output at over four million tons in the previous year.

As announced by the spokesman of the Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration (IRICA), Iraq bought $105 million, Russia $95.4 million, Afghanistan $51.7 million, India $26.6 million, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) $21.1 million of apples from Iran last year and were the top five export buyers of Iranian apples in that year.

Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Oman, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Pakistan, Qatar, Armenia, Kuwait, Georgia, Syria, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Libya, Bahrain, Uzbekistan, Malaysia, Mongolia, Sri Lanka, Egypt, Norway and the United Kingdom were the sixth to 27th destinations, respectively, Rouhollah Latifi added.

As the official has previously announced, food and agricultural products accounted for 7.7 percent of the country's weight of exports in the previous year, and the share of these goods in terms of value was more than 17.6 percent of the total value of exports.

MA/MA