TEHRAN – Iran exported over four million tons of caviar as well as one million tons of sturgeon meat worth about $16 million in the previous Iranian calendar year (ended on March 20), an official with the Iran Fisheries Organization said.

According to Naser Karami-Rad, Iran is expected to become the world's second or third biggest caviar producer over the next ten years, IRIB reported.

According to Arezu Ghaniyoun, the deputy head of the Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration (IRICA) Bureau of Customs Statistics and Information Processing, Iran exported 1.3 tons of caviar worth $539,000 in the first six months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 21-September 22), registering a 50 percent rise in terms of value compared to the figure for the previous year’s same period.

The Islamic Republic had exported 605 kilograms of caviar worth $350,000 during the previous year’s same six months.

Iranian caviar was exported to 23 different countries during the mentioned time span, Ghaniyoun noted.

United Arab Emirates (UAE) was the main importer of Iranian caviar during the said six months, accounting for about 32 percent of the total imports in terms of weight and value. Britain stood in second place, accounting for nearly 17 percent of the total caviar imports.

Portugal, Kuwait, and Japan, each accounting for about six percent of Iran's total caviar exports, were also among the top importers of the product in the first half of the current year, according to Ghaniyoun.

She noted that about 466 kg of the total exported caviar was exported to five European countries, namely Britain, Spain, Switzerland, Greece, and Portugal, which means about 37 percent of Iran's caviar exports were to Europe.

Back in July, IFO Head Nabiollah Khoun-Mirzaei said the country’s annual caviar production has reached 12 tons.

Speaking on the sidelines of the Sixth National Conference and Exhibition on Caviar and Related Industries, Khoun-Mirzaei put the annual production of sturgeon meat at over 3,500 tons.

He stated that the development of the sturgeon breeding industry is on the IFO agenda, adding: "In recent years, in some parts of the country, sturgeon breeding in cages has been on the agenda and we are trying to develop this type of breeding."

Noting that the Iranian caviar is the best and most expensive caviar in the world, Khoun-Mirzaei said: "Considering the popularity of Iranian caviar and sturgeon meat in the world and the high price and profitability of the mentioned commodity, the export of the product is done officially through the Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration (IRICA).”

The Persian sturgeon is a species of fish in the family Acipenseridae. It is found in the Caspian Sea and to a lesser extent the Black Sea and ascends certain rivers to spawn, mainly the Volga, Kura, Araks, and Ural Rivers.

EF/MA