“This amount of exported saffron, the strategic product from Khorassan Razavi shows %1 growth compared to the same period last year,” Head of Khorassan Razavi Agriculture Jihad Organization Mohammad Reza Orani said on Wednesday.
Orani added that in the first half of last year, 115 tons of saffron produced in the province were exported to foreign countries.
The priceless plant was sent to more than 50 countries. Spain, Vietnam, Qatar and the UAE were Iran’s biggest saffron importers during last year.
Saffron is cultivated in 22 Iranian provinces, but Khorasan Razavi, North Khorasan and South Khorasan provinces in Eastern Iran account for almost 90 percent of the country’s total saffron output.
The saffron industry has created some 200,000 jobs along the pre-harvest, harvest, post-harvest, processing, sorting and packaging chain.
Last year the top export destination for Iranian saffron was the United Arab Emirates with $31.64 million, followed by China with $20 million, Spain with $16.54 million, Afghanistan with $9.74 million and Vietnam with $8.8 million.
About 236 tons of saffron worth more than $325 million were exported from Iran during the year to March 20, showing a growth of 56 percent compared to the figure for a year earlier.
Experts have long said Iran has to improve marketing and find new customers if it wants to secure a bigger slice of the profits from saffron sales.
Bulk production methods in Iran bring in less than what is paid in countries such as Spain which re-exports the Iranian produce.
Saffron from Spain reportedly sells for €1,400 ($1,861) a kilogram in Europe, but Iranian varieties command a quarter or less that price.
“Countries like Spain, while being a major importer of saffron from our country, are among the largest exporters of this product in the world,” said the Head of Agriculture, Water and Food Industries Commission with Tehran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture Kaveh Zargaran in June.