TEHRAN- As announced by the spokesman of the Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration (IRICA), Iran has exported 884,798 tons of apples worth $326.668 million to 27 countries in the past Iranian calendar year (ended on March 20).

Ruhollah Latifi said that 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, he added.

The official further said that 207,257 tons of apples worth $62.587 million have been exported in the first quarter of the current Iranian calendar year (March 21-June 21).

As Latifi 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.

In the past year, more than 8.832 million tons of agricultural products, livestock products, fisheries, and foodstuff worth $6.167 billion were exported, the average value of each ton was $698, which is about 70 cents per kilogram, he stated.

Iran’s non-oil export was 112 million tons valued at $34.5 billion in the previous year.

Among the country’s non-oil export destinations, China was the first, with importing $8.9 billion worth of products, Iraq was the second with importing $7.3 billion, the United Arab Emirates the third with importing $4.6 billion, Turkey the fourth with importing $2.5 billion, and Afghanistan the fifth with importing $2.2 billion.

Gasoline, natural gas, polyethylene, propane, and pistachio were Iran’s major exported products during the past year.

MA/MA