Iran to up caviar export

/By AzerNews/

By Nigar Orujova

Iran plans to increase export of cultured caviar to the world market. The country plans to export 1.5 tons of caviar from January 2015 to March 2016, compared to one-ton caviar exported in the same period last year.

The Islamic Republic, being one of the world's largest producers of caviar, also produces white caviar – caviar of sturgeon albino.

The country has exported 900 kilograms of farmed caviar to the world market in January-August this year, said Isa Golshahi, Iran Fisheries Organization’s director general for quality improvement, processing and development of fisheries market, Fars agency reported.

Golshahi said the export price of caviar is $1,500-$1,600 per a kilogram.

Currently, Iran’s fishery products are also making their way into the Russian market, since Moscow banned food imports from the EU, the US, Canada, Australia and Norway in response to Western sanctions.

About 22,000 metric tons of shrimp and fish, worth $70 million, were exported from Iran to Russia in the five months since March.

Iranian caviar returns the world market as sanctions has begun to ease off this year.

The country plans to reduce dependence on oil revenues with broader caviar production and expand the export opportunities. For this purpose, the country is opening farms for sturgeon breeding. However, this process is long enough, as sturgeon needs at least 12 years to mature and produce caviar.

A new farm was recently unveiled in Juybar, Iran that will produce 30 tons caviar and 2,000 tons fish. This farm is the largest center for the breeding of sturgeon in the Near and Middle East.

Climatic and geographic conditions and a large amount of water resources are the most important advantages in the province for fish production, supply, and exports.

From this point, Mazandaran province of Iran is one of the fruitful. The province exports cultured caviar to several European countries, including Britain, Germany, and Belgium, the main importers of Iranian caviar.

As the world is facing global ban on catching wild sturgeon, the Caspian Sea littoral states banned commercial fishing until 2016.

The Caspian Sea has long been known as home to the world's best caviar, but for the last decade, the sturgeon that produces world-famous black caviar has been listed as an endangered species.

The prolongation of the ban has opened the way to reproduction of sturgeon in aquaculture conditions as a solution to the possible lack of caviar in domestic markets.