Iran bans agricultural produce imports

Iran has banned imports of some agricultural produce, dairy products and fruit concentrates until further notice, Agriculture Minister Sadigh Khalilian says.

“The measure is in line with a bill recently passed by Majlis [Iran’s Parliament], which was introduced by President [Mahmoud Ahmadinejad],” the minister announced in his letter to Iranian Commerce Minister Mehdi Ghazanfari, Mehr News Agency said Wednesday.

The ban will include fruit imports, such as apples from France, pears from China and oranges from Egypt.

Also, in his letter, the agriculture minister has asked the commerce minister to provide a list of the nation’s food import items.

“Given the domestic rice harvest, imports of the commodity will be stopped until December,” Khalilian said.

However, he noted that in case that domestic produce does not fulfill the needs, the product will be imported.

To avoid potential price fluctuations as a result of the Targeted Subsidies Plan — a legislation aimed at distributing a portion of the revenues recovered from rolling back subsidies on fuel and some food items in the form of direct payments to low-income groups — the Commerce Ministry has started stockpiling basic commodities such as red and white meat, dehydrated milk, dairy products, eggs, lentils, beans and cheese.

The basic commodities would be distributed if there were a baseless increase in the prices after subsidies plan is implemented.