Iran Focus

Tehran, Iran, May 20 - More than 400 tons of hoarded rice has been discovered in north-western Iran.

The chief inspector of the trade ministry in West Azarbaijan Province announced that the hoarded rice had been discovered in the city of Orumieh.

"Hoarders had bought this amount of rice from Sistan-va-Balouchestan Province and hoarded them up in seven warehouses which have been discovered in the last few days", Habib Dehqan told the state-run news agency Mehr on Monday.

The value of the stored rice is estimated at 6.5 billion Rials ($650,000), Dehqan said.

He added that in recent days 300 tons of rice from Thailand had been brought to the market to reduce the rising price of rice.

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