According to the Maku Free Zone news site, Hosein Garousi, in a meeting with Sultan bin Rashid Al Khater’s adviser on the sidelines of the 23rd China Investment and Trade Exhibition (CIFIT), explaining the investment opportunities of Maku Free Zone in the field of agriculture, said: Currently, due to agricultural infrastructure in this area, the largest modern and mechanized walnut orchard in the Middle East is under construction in the free zone.
He referred to the plan of from farm to table by Maku Free Zone Organization with the aim of supporting the producers of the agricultural sector, exclusion of dealers in the supply process of agricultural products and easy access of citizens to agricultural products, and added: the existence of 10 dams with 420 million cubic meters water, rivers full of water along the great Aras river and having about 98 thousand hectares of arable land and 32 thousand hectares of pressurized irrigation network in Maku free zone, among other potentials of this region for the development of agricultural activities, is especially considerable for the countries of the Persian Gulf and Qatar.
The annual production is 260,000 tons of horticultural, agricultural, livestock, fishery and natural honey products in Maku Free Zone, as well as the readiness of the lands adjacent to the dams of Maku Free Zone to be transferred to the investment of agricultural and industrial companies, is a capacity for agricultural activities. He added: The construction of greenhouse units and large and industrial livestock farms along with related industries is a huge capacity in setting up processing, conversion and packaging industries, which has completed the production cycle and increased production and will create employment in this region.
The production and export of prawns and seafood using the capacity of the Ares River has given this region the first rank of seafood production among the non-coastal cities of the country, Garousi said.
The advisor to the Minister of Trade and Industry of Qatar also expressed his satisfaction with the negotiations with Maku Free Zone and said: Business development and high-quality production are very important for Qatar, and along with China, which is a main trading partner and the largest source of imports to this country, Qatar’s market can be the biggest export destination of Iran’s agricultural products.
