TEHRAN – Iranian farmers produced 1.3 million tons of dates in the current Iranian calendar year (began on March 21, 2023) of which 350,000 tons worth $270 million have been exported, the head of National Date Association of Iran said.

According to Mohsen Rashid Farokhi, Iran is currently the world’s third-biggest producer of dates, IRNA reported.

Producing 1.8 million tons of dates per year, Egypt is the first producer of dates in the world, and Saudi Arabia and Iran are ranked second and third, the official said.

Last week, the spokesman of the International Relations and Trade Development Committee of Iran's House of Industry, Mining and Trade said that the value of Iran’s exports of agricultural and foodstuff products increased by 22 percent in the first 10 months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 21, 2023-January 20, 2024).

According to Ruhollah Latifi, Iranian producers managed to export over 6.775 million tons of the mentioned products worth more than $4.873 billion in the said 10 months, also registering an 8.4 percent rise in terms of weight.

As reported, of the total exports, 4.944 million tons with a value of $2.93 billion were crops, vegetables, and horticulture products, 1.133 million tons worth $931.96 million were processed food products, and the rest were fishery, livestock, and dairy products.

Dairy products with $561.4 million of exports, pistachios with $478.7 million, tomatoes with $255.4 million, apples with $248.7 million and fishery products with $244.9 million were the top five food and agricultural products exported in the mentioned 10 months.

EF/MA