TEHRAN (Iran News) – Head of Rice Association of Babol (in Mazandaran Province) says export of rice to Russia have started but its amount is limited.
Speaking to ILNA, Hassan Taghizadeh said that some traders from the semi-private sector has exported some 3 containers of high quality rice of north of Iran to Russia in order to provoke the domestic market but this also could not help the domestic market to come out of current recession.
He noted that currently recession dominates the rice market in Iran, adding that the price of rice increased illogically last year and the prices should not have gone up this way and therefore the demands for Iranian rice decreased.
Taghizadeh admitted that rice planters do not like to sell their products to the rural cooperative organization because they are not certain over getting their money back on due time. He also said that the rice prices this year have increased around 3,000 tomans per kilo, adding that although good quality packed rice is sold for around 90,000 tomans per kilo, there are few people to buy.
He went on to say that because of the sanctions, even chain stores do not like to buy the rice and they just buy for a limited amount to meet the demands of their customers and they refrain from storing and it does not look the condition to get better in the upcoming days.
Taghizadeh reiterated that the amount of rice purchase by the people has become one-tenths of last year because of the decline in the purchasing power.
He acknowledged that most of chain stores sell foreign rice because it price is lower than Iranians despite a rice in the price of foreign rice this year.
He went on to say that the rice planters have increased the price of their rice to 100,000 tomans per kilo and for this reason most store chains are unwilling to buy and sell Iranian rice because of its high prices.
Taghizadeh went on to say that even the news of exports to Russia did not help the domestic rice market to come out of the recession because people are losing their purchasing power and they turn to the rice with lower prices and foreign rice will become their first choice just because of the price and not for quality.
