NCRI Staff
NCRI – A board member of the Agriculture Committee of the Iran regime’s parliament said sugar is imported “10 times the required amount” annually into the country and this issue has led to “billions of dollars profits for a few specific persons”.
Jalal Mahmoudzadeh said on Sunday January 28, announcing this issue in an interview with the state-run Tasnim news agency affiliated to terrorist Quds force, saying that “irregular” and excessive import of sugar has caused “damage to sugar beet producers and manufacturing plants” and “billion-dollar profits for certain people”.
He added that as result, the sugar factories are “forced to present their products at 290 Toman less than the price of 2722 Toman approved by the government to meet their expenses”.
In another part of his statements, he said that sugar beet makers “have delivered their product to the government for about three months”, adding that the government has not paid the “cost” of the “product and delivery” until now.
The regime’s MP also added that the government, despite its promise, has not “paid” until now “the subsidies for the double-rate sugar for the years 2015 and 2016” that could have led to a constant price for this product.
Earlier, Mohammad Hosseini, a member of the Board of Directors of the Iranian Sugar Association, criticized irregular and excessive sugar imports, saying “despite the fact that the sugar produced inside the country is stocked in the warehouses, currently 2 million and 300 thousand tons sugar is imported annually.”
In March of this year, criticizing the government’s failure to address the “last year’s debt payment” to sugar beet growers, he said the “liquidity shortage” was a major problem for sugar industry and said that “these units are unable to pay workers’ salaries due to financial problems.”
The Organization for Trade Development of Iran reported on October 10 a “dramatic” increase in imports, adding that imports of rice, corn and sugar have increased sharply and almost doubled.
Several members of the regime’s parliament including Majid Kianpour had already spoke about the irregular and excessive import of rice. Kianpour in an interview with the state-run ISNA news agency had said: “Rice imports are too excessive and this issue harms domestic and local farmers.
Another member of the regime’s parliament, Mehrdad Baouj Lahouti, on November 11 while pointing to the import of1 million 60 thousands rice in the last year, added that “per capita consumption of rice is 36 kilograms per Iranian, and according to this, the country’s needs for rice are estimated to be 2 million and 800 thousand tons”.
By announcing the importation of more than a billion dollars of rice to the country during the current year, this member of the regime’s parliament said that the result of “irregular and excessive” import of this product was “strategic usage change of about three thousand hectares of rice fields.”
Lahouti also said: “So far, a million tons of rice has been imported. By the end of this year, another million (tons of rice) will be imported. One million tons is also smuggled. So tell the farmer to sell his land and do not plant and grow rice.”
In this regard, Mohammad Hossein Ghorbani, deputy head of the Healthcare Committee of the regime’s parliament, said on Tuesday, “Annually, 400,000 tons of rice” are imported, a significant proportion of which is contaminated with “Arsenic”.
According to the state-run ISNA news agency, Mohammad Sadegh Hassani, member of the regime’s parliament from Rasht, on September 17 last year said the biggest problem of Iran is imports, adding “the huge personal profits from imports have broken the back of the economy”.
According to ISNA, he had also said: “Import of goods is made with one tenth of the price of the manufactured goods, and thus it has broken the back of the economy, and as long as we do not prevent imprudent and uncalculated imports motivated by and resulting from rents, the recession and the negative growth of the economy will continue to persist.”