- Behnam Khatami, Banking and Legal Advisor: At the beginning, SPV would be only limited to food, medicine and medical equipment. This mechanism is new to the world and the details are still unclear, however, it may expand into other goods such as the industrial ones.
- Noorafshan, CEO of Varna: More than 95% of bread consumption in Arab countries is Pita. The other kinds of bread are not popular in those countries and therefore, the flour is not suitable for baking other types of bread. The flour for making pita is not a good quality one either and it does not give the needed volume and softness to pita.
- Malek, Manager of Mana Group: Our request, as producers, from the government is to omit the subsidized wheat and allows the producers to buy the wheat quality that they are looking for. If the government will not allow the producers to buy the specific quality that they need, the produces would be again those who should pay the price for the wrong decisions.
- Hojjat Baratali, Sales Manager of GTC: Removing wheat from the commodities exchange has been done according to the request of Iran Mercantile Exchange company. The price gap between the wheat in the market and the 900-Toman wheat was too much and IME was not able to control it.
- Goli, CEO of Ghoncheh Flour: Although Khoozesatn province has the best quality wheat in Iran, most of its wheat is exported to other provinces and this has led to buying wheat from other parts of the country which is not economically justifiable, because we are paying for the logistics. This issue makes it difficult for millers to offer competitive prices. We are not against exporting the wheat to other provinces, we just need to store the needed wheat and export the rest of it.
- Sharif Nezam Mafi, former CEO of Buhler Iran: Buhler Astara’s products were not enough for Iran’s market, because of the Turkish equipment and the copied Iranian ones, therefore, Chaldoran Roller Mill was a missing point for the Buhler Astara’s range of equipment. Localizing this roller mill has been a great step in supporting Iran’s industry.
- Parviz Jahangiri, Founder of Pars Esta Industrial Group: Unfortunately, the worsening economical situation has made people to buy cheaper option of bread which is the traditional flat ones. There have been huge investments on industrial bread and this situation is not in their favor.
- Ahmad Sadeghian, member of the agriculture department of Tehran Chamber of Commerce: Insisting on self-sufficiency for some products is not reasonable because different parts of the country have various climactic conditions and this should be managed via correcting the consumption and production models. For instance, the per capita consumption of rice 4 decades ago was 10 kilograms while it is 49 kilograms now, and this has happened because of the government’s policies. However, producing this amount of rice in a country with scarce water supplies is not possible.
