Azernews.Az

A guaranteed purchase price of wheat from Iranian farmers was increased from 8,000 rials to 10,500 rials per kilogram (which is about $0.42 based on the official rate of 24,744 rials per each dollar), Iranian government speaker Mohammad Bagher Nobakht said.

Nobakht said that each kilogram of imported wheat costs about 8,500 rials for administration, adding that, government intends to take advantage of available opportunities to increase domestic wheat production, ISNA news agency reported.

The State Commerce Company imports wheat at $360-370 (8.9-9.1 million rials) per ton or 11,000 to 12,000 rials per kilogram.

Iran's wheat imports decreased by 60 percent in the first four months of the current solar year (started in March 21). The country imported some 963,000 tons of wheat in the period.

The imported wheat was valued at $400 million. Switzerland, Great Britain, and Turkey were the main exporters of wheat to Iran.

Iran imported 6.5 million tons of wheat worth $2.5 billion during the last solar year.

The country plans to produce 12 million tons of wheat by the end of the current solar year (March 20, 2014), Deputy Agriculture Minister Nasser Tavakoli said on Tuesday.

"Iran also plans to provide 300,000 tons of wheat seed for next year," the ISNA News Agency quoted Tavakoli as saying.

Iran's former Industry Minister Mehdi Ghazanfari said in July that the government has bought eight trillion rials (about $650 million) worth of wheat from domestic buyers since the beginning of the current Iranian solar year, the Tasnim News Agency.

Farmers sold 1.1 million tons of wheat to the government during the aforementioned period, up 16 per cent year on year.