Financial Tribune - Around 6,400 tons of different kinds of dates worth more than 550 billion rials (over $14.54 million) were exported from Hormozgan Province in southern Iran during the first four months of the current fiscal year (March 21-July 22), the head of Hormozgan Date Association said.

Ebrahim Pourheydari added that this registered a 5% increase compared with the similar period of last year.

The increase in exports, he explained, owes to better packaging and the opening of LC by Omani banks, IRNA reported.

�Some 20% of Hormozgan�s dates are exported and the rest is consumed domestically. Our main export destinations are Russia, Canada, the US, Australia, Central Asian states, Malaysia, Indonesia and the littoral states of the Persian Gulf,� he said.

Iran is the world�s biggest exporter and second biggest producer of dates. The country produced close to 1.2 million tons in the last fiscal year that ended on March 20, 2017. About 20% of overall production, worth $300 million, were exported.

Hormozgan, Sistan-Baluchestan, Kerman, Fars, Bushehr, Khuzestan, Ilam, Kermanshah, Yazd, South Khorasan and Isfahan top the list of Iranian provinces that cultivate dates.