TEHRAN – More than 230 Iranian knowledge-based companies are active in the country’s herbal medicine industry, producing traditional medicine and other related products.

Over the past 10 years, permits which have been issued for producing herbal medicine and other natural products rose by 10 folds to 3,733, IRNA quoted Mohammad-Hassan Assareh, head of the presidential office’s headquarters for traditional medicine, as saying.

He went on to say that the import of natural products dropped by 85 percent in the past Iranian calendar year (ended March 20).

In July 2019, Javad Mirarab, an official with the Ministry of Agriculture, said that medicinal plants were cultivated on some 188,000 hectares of land across the country.

He also said that exports of the aforesaid medicinal plants brought $450 million for Iran in 2018, and saffron with a value of $325 million constituted the largest share of exports.

Food and Drug Administration official Mahnaz Khanavi has said that natural and herbal medicines constitute 4 percent of the total amount of medicines used in the country.

Currently, over 5,700 knowledge-based companies are active in the country, mainly in aviation, steel, pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, oil, and gas sectors, manufacturing diverse products to meet the needs of the domestic market while saving large amounts of foreign currency.

MG