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An experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of regulated deficit irrigation (RDI) on yield and water use efficiency (WUE) of processing tomato in an arid climate. The results showed that crop yields of processing tomato were significantly (p<0.05) 11.0 % similar to 60.0 % higher in the fully irrigated plots than RDI treatments except that subject to low level of RDI at seedling. When subject to RDI fruit number per plant, fruit weight, fruit longitudinal diameter and transverse diameter were the main components contributing to yield increase of processing tomato, while decayed fruit number was the key factor restraining tomato yield improvement. The WUE of processing tomato was significantly improved by 13.4% in RDI plants subject to low water deficit at seedling compared to full irrigation, but no difference (p>0.05) existed between fully irrigated crops and RDI plants subject to water deficit at seedling or late fruiting. However, in comparison with fully irrigated crops WUE was significantly reduced by 16.3 % similar to 23.3 % in RDI plants subject to water deficits respectively at flowering and full fruiting as well as subject to high water deficit at late fruiting. Therefore, low level of RDI at seedling while full irrigation during flowering to late fruiting could be applied to effectively improve yield and WUE of processing tomato in arid areas.