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Iran reports significant surge in fisheries, aquaculture output

Iran says fisheries, aquaculture production keep rising to respond to an increasing domestic demand.

Iran has managed to significantly increase its fisheries, aquaculture output over the past years as demand for healthy and nutritious sea foods keeps surging inside the country.

Head of Iran’s Fisheries Organization said on Monday that the annual fisheries and aquaculture production in the country would exceed a target of 1.250 million tons (1.37 million American tons) until March 2020, when the current Iranian calendar year ends.

Nabiollah Khunmirzaei said annual output stood at 1.1 million tons in the year ending in March 2019, saying the figure was above a target defined in a five-year national economic plan that started in 2016.

The official said a boom for fisheries industries in Iran was mainly a result of increased demand for seafood in the country.

He said average consumption of sea food items reached 12.1 kilograms per person last year, up more than 50 percent compared to several years before.

Speaking in an international fisheries and aquaculture exhibition on Tehran, Khunmirzaei said it had become a policy of the Iranian government to encourage consumption of seafood and white meat to reduce an annual import of 150,000 tons of red meat into the country.

He said Iran had made a good progress in trout farming, saying the country was currently the number one producer of rainbow trout in the world.

 Khunmirzaei said production of caviar and shrimp had also experienced a boom over the past years,

He said Iran was currently third in the world in sturgeon farming and processing, adding that production of shrimp in aqua farms south and north of the country was on rise despite diseases that had affected output in the previous years.


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