Financial Tribune

An article published by the American newspaper Tampa Bay Times also noted that dozens of Iranian producers are raising sturgeon legally on fish farms, just as the 2015 nuclear agreement Iran signed with six world powers has slowly reopened foreign markets to Iranian products. Excerpts follow:

Once among Iran’s most famous exports, the industry nearly collapsed because of trade restrictions and an international clampdown on the capture of sturgeon from the Caspian Sea. The long, prehistoric fish, whose glittery, bead-like eggs make the choicest caviar, had been driven nearly to extinction by overfishing.

After the United States lifted an embargo on Iranian goods in January 2016, the first shipment of Iranian caviar in nearly a decade reached America last year: a modest 18 pounds of the prized beluga variety.

The shipment was worth about $16,000, or about as much as Iran’s $41 billion oil and gas industry generates in 12 seconds.

But the shipment was one signal of a new page in Iran’s relations with the West and a sign that the Islamic Republic was ready to do business with the world again.

In two or three years, industry officials said, Iran could export as much as 200 pounds annually to the United States as production increases and Iran finds new customers for the luxury food.

“The United States is an uncharted but potentially big market for us,” said Ali Akbar Khodaei, secretary-general of Iran’s Fisheries Production and Trading Union, an industry group.

Many economists say Iran needs to find ways to produce more exports to create jobs and bring in foreign currency.

“There is potential in Iran’s fisheries industry, whose exports rose 80% in the most recent quarter, compared with the same period of a year ago,” said Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, an economics professor at Virginia Tech University.

“In terms of generating employment, such exports are important. Fisheries are very labor intensive compared to oil and petrochemicals. If there is movement there, it’s a sign for policymakers that promoting such exports is a good thing.”

The lifting of sanctions is happening at a potentially lucrative time for Iran’s caviar industry, which is finally rebounding after decades of struggles.

The mostly state-controlled caviar industry nearly collapsed during the 1990s and 2000s as the breakup of the Soviet Union—with which Iran shared the Caspian Sea—triggered a torrent of unregulated fishing in one of the world’s main habitats for several sturgeon species, including the beluga, which produces the most expensive caviar.

In 2010, sturgeon farming got a boost after Iran signed a ban on sturgeon fishing with Russia and the other former Soviet republics that are part of the Caspian Sea basin.

The beluga, with a lifespan of 100 years, takes about a decade to begin producing eggs. Within two or three years, industry officials say, Iranian farmed caviar production will rise exponentially.

“We are free from sanctions at the same time as Iranian caviar is ready to be reintroduced to the world market,” Khodaei said. “It is a great opportunity.”

Close to 388 kilograms of caviar worth nearly 31.5 billion rials (around $965,400) were exported from Iran during the five months to August 22, registering a 10.5% and 3% fall in weight and value respectively compared with the corresponding period of last year, the Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration said.

Germany, Hong Kong, the UAE, Japan, Italy, Belgium, France, Kuwait and the UK were the main export destinations for Iranian caviar over the period, Young Journalists Club reported.

Iran’s caviar exports stood at a high of 38 tons in the fiscal 2004-05.