April 11, 2007

EU sends back 6,000 tonnes of Iranian shrimp for documentation problems

More than 6,000 tonnes of shrimp bound for EU-member states were sent back to the country due to discrepancy in export documents, according to the director of the Public Relations Office of Iran's Fisheries Organization, Mehdi Shirazi.

Almost 3,500 tonnes of the returned consignment was re-exported while the rest were channeled to the domestic market.

Iranian shrimp exports was at 2,800 tonnes in the year to March 2006 and the shipment would have more than doubled the shrimp shipments so far.

In other news, the offical revealed that Iran has been allocated 60 percent of the Caspian Sea caviar quota.

The quota was assigned by the Secretariat of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES)

The quota for other littoral states--Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan--stands at 40 percent, the official said.

The secretariat did not publish caviar quota in 2006 because the five states concerned failed to provide sufficient information on the sustainability of their sturgeon catch.