TEHRAN - Iran’s Food Security Headquarters, a government department controlled by the ministry of agriculture (MAJ), ordered the imports of 100,000 metric tons of potato and 200,000 tons of rice into the country following an emergency meeting held on Thursday.
MAJ’s spokesman Alireza Rezazadeh said that the imports had been ordered to comply with a decree by Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi to fight hoarding and overpricing of food in the domestic market.
Rezazadeh would not elaborate on the name of countries from where Iran will import potato but he said that rice shipments will gradually arrive from India, Pakistan and Thailand within the next two months.
This is a first time in years that Iran decides to import potato, a crop which is produced in the country on a massive scale of around 5.2 million tons per year.
However, reports on Thursday suggested that the MAJ had issued a decree with immediate effect to halt potato exports from Iran.
The reports said that the government will impose a heavy duty on exports of potato from the country in the upcoming weeks.
Rezazadeh said that the government will start distributing Iranian rice on a large scale later this week to contain surging prices that he attributed to hoarding practices.
The decisions come as price of some premium verities of Iranian rice hit record highs of 1.15 million rials ($4.2) per kilogram on Wednesday.
That comes as Pakistani or Indian rice varieties were selling for around $1 per kilogram in the market on the same day.