Official: Iran needs no sugar imports

Published July 11th, 2004 - 03:00 GMT

Director General of the the Iranain Commerce Ministry’s Regulation and Distribution sector, Hossein Modarres Khiabani said on Saturday that some 40,000 tons of sugar were imported to Iran from last year’s proportion in the first quarter of the current year.

Modarres Khiabani told the Mehr News Agency that according to dta from the Agriculture Ministry, the amount of local sugar production and consumption are nearly 1.4m and 1.9m tons, respectively, thus the current sugar shortage is put at 500,000 tons.

The official stressed that the current sugar storage is nearly 600,000 tons, so there is no need to import sugar this year.

He put the total imported sugar at 216,000 tons last year, adding that 160,000 tons of this amount was imported by government and 50,000 tons by other sectors. (menareport.com)