TEHRAN – Iran imported over 23.107 million tons of basic goods in the previous Iranian calendar year (ended on March 20) of which 58 percent or 13.438 million tons were livestock feed inputs, the spokesman of the Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration (IRICA) said.

Rouhollah Latifi put the total value of the basic goods imported into the country over the past year at $12.029 billion, IRNA reported.

According to Latifi, corn, barley, and soybean meal were the three main inputs imported into Iran in the previous year, accounting for 31 percent of the total value of the imported basic goods.

Over 13.438 million tons of the mentioned commodities worth over $3.741 billion shipped into the country last year, the official said.

Corn was at the top of the country's imports list in the said year with more than 9.782 million tons of imports worth over $2.498 billion, followed by soybean meal with over 1.819 million tons valued at $793.938 of imports and barley with 1.836 million tons worth $457.32 million.

Back in December 2020, the Agriculture Ministry had announced that despite the trade limitations in the country, the required livestock feed inputs were provided to all meat and poultry chains in the country, and there were no restrictions in terms of providing and delivering inputs to the producers.

The Director-General of the Agriculture Ministry's Grains and Essential Goods Department Faramak Aziz-Karimi had said in late December 2020 that the implementation of a plan for reducing dependence on imports of livestock, poultry, and aquatic inputs, in a one-year project, the volume of imported corn and soybean meal decreased by three million tons and 400,000 tons.

According to Aziz-Karimi, the mentioned plan was implemented to substitute corn with other alternative crops such as millet, sorghum, triticale, vetch, soybean oil, and its meal, cotton meal, sesame, canola, and sunflower.

Based on the latest data released by Iran Feed and Grain Importers Union (IFGIU), Iran imported 8.5 million tons of animal feed inputs in the first seven months of the previous Iranian calendar year (March 20-October 21,2020), down 10 percent compared to the corresponding period in the preceding year.

According to IFGIU, some 9.5 million tons of the mentioned products were imported into the country in the previous year’s same seven months.

The total value of imports of livestock inputs in the said period stood at over $2.377 billion, 18 percent less than the same period last year in which $2.903 billion worth of such products were imported.

EF/MA