Page 48 - IRANRptDec19

plant.
Israeli technology experts later admitted that the code in which Stuxnet took down the nuclear facility was the date of the hanging of famous Jewish Iranian businessman Habib Elghanian. He was executed by the Islamic Republic for contacts with Israel in 1980.
Iran said in November last year that it has successfully thwarted a wave of cyberattacks apparently staged by Israel to target the country’s communications infrastructure.
9.1.6​ Agriculture & commodities sector news
Iran signed a wheat import deal with Russia and Kyrgyzstan at the end of last week, according to Mehr News Agency.
Grains and wheat shipments to Iran from Russia​ have risen in recent years with the Islamic Republic continuing on its path of integration with regional neighbours following the signing of a two-year preferential trade agreement with the Moscow-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). It went into effect on October 21. Along with Russia, the EEU groups Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Armenia and Belarus.
Exports from Russia to Iran have expanded via the Caspian Sea northern shore port of Astrakhan with ships carrying consignments heading to Iran’s Bandar Anzali port on the southern shore.
“An MoU [memorandum of understanding] has been penned for short-term [wheat] imports and transits and swaps of wheat,” Iranian Deputy Agriculture Minister Ali Akbar Mehrfard was quoted as saying, adding: “A wheat swap is expected to be completed [soon] but those details have not been clarified yet.” Iran currently accounts for only a 0.3% share of EEU trade, Akbar Mehrfard observed.
Current flour consumption is less than flour production and capacity in Iran, so a proportion of the Russian and Kyrgyz wheat would be milled and then reexported as flour to regional neighbours, the official added.
A shortfall in Iranian flour production of 3mn tonnes was recorded for the 2018/2019 Persian calendar year in March. Akbar Mehrfard was cited as saying the deficit was partly due to hoarding and was not climate change-related.
Iranian private millers looking to export flour need imported wheat as they are forbidden from using domestic wheat for products to be sold abroad.
Russia exported 137,500 tonnes of wheat to Iran in the 2017/2018 marketing year.
Mehrfard said that the government would need to commit around IRR80tn ($709mn at the official exchange rate) to import wheat at a lower cost than it would cost to grow the crop volumes domestically.
Iran, Russia and Kazakhstan​ ​in February finalised a deal which​ to secure long-term Iran-bound supplies of grain.
Iran stood as one of the largest markets for Russian wheat until there was a slashing of such imports in 2016 as part of Tehran’s drive for self-sufficiency.
Iran’s saffron farmers are expected to harvest some 430 tonnes of the prized flower threads used as a food seasoning and colouring agent in the current Persian calendar year (ends mid-March 2020), according to the Ministry of Agriculture said, as cited by Mehr News Agency on October 20.
Iran officially produced 404 tonnes of the spice in the 2018/2019 Persian year. A comparison of the low weight of saffron to its high value shows it is one of
48​ IRAN Country Report​ December 2019 www.intellinews.com