TEHRAN- The value of Iran’s export of sweets, chocolates, and cereal products increased 21 percent in the first month of the current Iranian calendar year (March 21-April 20), as compared to the same month of the past year, an official with Iran’s Trade Promotion Organization (TPO) announced.

Mahmoud Bazari, the director-general of TPO’s office of agricultural products and processing industries, said that the export of the mentioned items also registered a 13-percent growth in terms of weight in the mentioned month.

While mentioning Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Azerbaijan as the main target markets for the export of these products, he said the production of sweets and chocolates in the country has made good progress in the last ten years and can be said to have an acceptable status in terms of quality and variety of products.

The confectionery and chocolate industry is one of the oldest food industries in Iran, and it is now the second-largest exporter in the country's food sector after the dairy industry.

About 100 percent of the investment in this industry belongs to the private sector and most of its products are competitive globally.

The advantage of the confectionery and chocolate industry is the supply of its raw materials inside the country.

With this advantage, any investment will bring profit to this industry.

As a result of supporting domestic producers and products and banning the import of foreign products in this sector, Iranian producers are now able to meet the needs of the domestic market and are welcomed by domestic consumers.

This industry is also targeted to boost export to different markets all around the world.

Iran exports sweets and chocolates to 66 countries and the annual export of $1 billion has been planned for this industry.

While the industry is trying to materialize the objective of surge in production and also boost export, it is facing some challenges especially in terms of production, as the production costs are increasing.

Meanwhile, the sanctions and coronavirus pandemic have made access to global markets difficult, and domestic demand has also declined.

The chairman of the Association of Iranian Confectionery Manufacturing Companies has said that due to the sanctions, the import of raw materials and essences from Europe has been stopped and products from Southeast Asian countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia, and China have been replaced, which are of much lower quality.

For this reason, the overall quality of confectionery and chocolate products has also changed, Jamshid Maghazei said.

MA/MA