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Acknowledging the move could fuel inflation, the Agriculture Ministry said it had also decided to take over from private buyers the purchase of vegetables from abroad.
It will also require private sector firms to procure licenses to buy set volumes of vegetables when the country needs additional supplies.
The Iraqi government already manages one of the world's largest grain purchase programs through frequent, huge tenders.
"The ban began on May 1," Subhi al-Jumaily, a senior deputy agriculture minister said in an interview on Thursday.
"We don't want to shut off imports completely but want to arrange them through official agreements for all different food items," he said.
The vegetable import ban will be in place whenever
Iraqi farmers and manufacturers have complained of a flood of cheap imports since the fall of Saddam Hussein and his tightly controlled economy in the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
That has stoked calls for a partial reversal of free market reforms to give Iraqi industries time to develop and compete after years of war and sanctions.
The ministry did not have any statistics on the volume and value of vegetables imported into
Abdul Rahman al-Mashhadani of
For the year to date, $5.5 billion of food was imported from
The figures do not include huge state purchases of wheat and rice from countries including
The move to restrict vegetable imports could stoke inflation but the ministry was taking measures to prevent this, he said, without giving details.
Inflation in