TEHRAN –- Exports of fish and other seafood from Iran in the first year of the nation’s Fourth Five-Year Development Plan (2005-2010) reached 21,000 tons however, and the figure is expected to hit 60,000 tons by the end of the plan, an official with Iran’s Fisheries Organization said.

He expressed satisfaction over the private sector’s significant role in the nation’s aquaculture industry and referred to the shortages of aquaculture feed as the main challenge facing the sector.

Commenting on the promotion of the seafood diet in the country, he said that Iran’s Fisheries Organization is planning to allocate Rls.10 billion (roughly around $1,087,000) to the issue, ISNA news agency said on Sunday.

He also referred to the Iran’s quota of the caviar exports from the Caspian Sea and said that under 2007 quotas announced by the secretariat of the U.N. Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, known as CITES, Iran can export this year up to 60 percent of caviar products from the sea and the other four Caspian Sea littoral states - Russia, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan- will be able to export the rest 40 percent.