Qaem Comprehensive Economic Development Company

The Islamic Republic of Iran has long held the leading position in the world in terms of quantity and quality of natural caviar production.

The Qaem Comprehensive Economic Development Company of Gilan Province has started its activities since 2014 in the Shohada Khyber Aquaculture Industrial Complex in Abkenar village, Bandar Anzali, Gilan province, in order to breed, produce and reproduce valuable species of sturgeon in the Caspian Sea in order to achieve technical and biotechnical knowledge of sturgeon in terms of reducing the breeding period, preserving the stocks of sturgeon in the Caspian Sea, increasing the quality of fish food, improving health and reducing fish diseases, and optimally using limited water resources with new plans and knowledge-based ideas in line with the goals of the resistance economy. Its goals include the annual production of more than 40 tons of sturgeon meat and 1 ton of caviar for export, artificial reproduction of farmed broodstock, and the production of 100,000 fry to rebuild stocks and activate inactive sturgeon breeding centers in the country. With the horizon of the country’s 2025 program to reach 20,000 tons of sturgeon meat and 20 tons of caviar, knowledge-based development projects are definitely being considered. It is necessary to explain that the fish fry propagated in this complex since 2018, which is a national and mother project in the country, have been distributed among breeders in 19 provinces of the country.

This farm has a license to produce 40 tons of meat, 1 ton of caviar, and 100,000 pieces of sturgeon fry per year. Currently, of the total of seven common breeding species in the country from the family of sturgeons, all seven breeding species including elephant fish, ozonburun, Siberian, Chalbash, sterlet, karaburun, and bast are being breeded in this farm with a live mass volume of about 70 tons, and during the last four years of its activity, it has produced and supplied more than 200 kilograms of cultivated caviar and 400,000 pieces of sturgeon fry.