ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — At the Dubai Creek port, sailors bound for Iran say they are loading their dhows with food, instead of their usual cargos of electronics and home appliances, as international sanctions lift prices.

“Everything is more expensive these days and ordinary people, even merchants, won’t buy expensive goods,” said Reza Esmaeili, 44, an Iranian sailor. “Food is different because it’s essential to our lives.” He said typical cargoes include rice, tea, cooking oil and sugar.

Restrictions on trade with Iran, imposed by the United States and European Union this year on the grounds they are required to curb the Islamic republic’s nuclear program, are hurting its economy. The rial has dropped 9.2 percent against the dollar at official rates this year, and posted steeper losses on the black market as Iranians rushed to buy hard currency and the government imposed exchange controls.

That has increased the price Iranians pay for goods bought in Dubai and loaded onto some 2,000 ships that regularly ply the route across the Persian Gulf. Esmaeili said purchases in Dubai include rice and tea from India and Pakistan, and sugar from Germany and Italy. He said his cargo will cost 500 million rials ($41,000) and earn him a profit of 150 million rials.

Iran was Dubai’s second biggest market for re-exports after India in the third-quarter of 2011. Sales of 8.8 billion dirhams ($2.4 billion) to the Islamic republic accounted for more than one-fifth of the total, Dubai Statistics Centre data show.

Economic conditions in Iran are “worse than wartime,” said Abdolreza Ebrahimi, 60, a captain who is shipping spare parts for automobiles to Bushehr province in 12 40-foo containers. Inflation is above 20 percent, according to central bank figures.