TEHRAN - Iran Fisheries Organization (IFO) is implementing a program to provide the country’s fisheries with low-interest bank loans since subsidized input is no longer provided for them, an official with IFO said.

According to Director-General of IFO’s Planning and Budget Office Rajab-Ali Qorbanzadeh, Agriculture Ministry is seriously pursuing a program for providing working capital at a rate of 10 to 12 percent for the country’s livestock, poultry, and aquaculture production units.

As reported by IRIB, the IFO head has held several meetings with the representatives of the Agriculture Ministry after which primary agreements have been reached for the allocation of the mentioned resources.

Hopefully, the allocation of the mentioned facilities will begin in the next few days after Agriculture Ministry finalizes the directive in this regard, Qorbanzadeh said.

Details on the conditions for benefiting from these facilities will be released soon, according to the official.

He further noted that one trillion rials (about $3.9 million) of facilities with a 14-percent interest rate will also be provided for the country’s fisheries by Bank Keshavarzi (Agriculture Bank).

Fishery production has increased noticeably in Iran in recent years and the Islamic Republic of Iran plans to further boost its annual fishery production to 714,000 tons in the current Iranian calendar year (started on March 21).

Back In April, Morteza Afrasiabi, the acting head of the IFO’s fishery development department, said that of the mentioned figure, 277,000 tons will be fishes bred in cages and 70,000 tons will be shrimps.

Over the past three years, the efforts of the Aquatics Production and Trade Union of Iran, and the non-governmental sector have led to the addition of markets in countries such as Oman and Malaysia to Iran's target export markets in the field of the fishery.

Iran exported 62,500 tons of fisheries in the first half of the past Iranian calendar year (March 21-September 22, 2021), according to an official with the IFO.

Isa Golshahi, the IFO’s director-general for quality improvement, processing, and market development, said that live, frozen, and processed fisheries and aquatic products have been exported to different countries in the first six months of the previous year.

More than 27,000 tons of fish, 201 tons of ornamental fish, 8,900 tons of shrimp, 6,500 tons of canned fish, 1.1 tons of farmed caviar based on the country's customs statistics, and two tons of trout baby were exported from the country, the official stated.

Enjoying high quality, Iran’s fishery products were sold easily in the export markets, and also some new export destinations welcomed these products in the past three years; as new markets including China, South Korea, and the Eurasian Union nations opened up for Iranian fishery products.

EF/MA