TEHRAN – The head of Iran Fisheries Organization (IFO) Hossein Hosseini has said the country is aiming to increase the exports of fishery products to one billion dollars by the Iranian calendar year 1404 (begins on March 21, 2025), IRIB reported.

Hosseini said the country's fishery production in the previous Iranian calendar year (ended on March 20) stood at 1,268,000 tons, and according to the IFO’s new reform plan, fishery production is set to increase to 2,600,000 tons by the year 1404.

According to the official, Iran exported 160,000 tons of fishery products worth $556 million last year.

Following the IFO’s reform plan, the organization is implementing a program to provide the country’s fisheries with low-interest bank loans since subsidized input is no longer provided for them.

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

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.

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.

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/MG