TEHRAN- Iran’s crude steel production increased by 30 percent in 2019 while the average global growth in this sector stood at 3.5 percent, according to a report released by the World Steel Association (WSA).

Based on the report, Iran produced 31.9 million tons of the mentioned commodity during 2019 compared to the last year’s nearly 24 million tons.
WSA says that crude steel production in the world has risen 3.5 percent to reach 1.848 billion tons in 2019.

According to the WSA report, China was the world’s top steel producer in 2019, with 996.3 million tons of production.

In its previous report, WSA had put Iran’s steel production at 23.648 million tons in the eleven-month period of 2019, rising 5.3 percent from 22.452 million tons in the same time span of the previous year.

Iran produced 2.13 million tons of crude steel in November 2019, which was 2.6 percent lower than 2.187 million tons of the product produced in November 2018, the same report confirmed.

According to the World Steel Association, Iran became the world’s tenth-largest steel producer in 2018.

Iran which stood at the 13th place in 2017 could lag behind three major steel producers in the world, namely Italy, Taiwan, and Ukraine to stand at the 10th place in 2018, despite the re-imposition of sanctions by the U.S.

In early May 2019, Washington imposed new sanctions on Iran's metals and minerals sectors in an attempt to [as the U.S. president Trump put it] “choke off the country’s largest non-petroleum related sources of export revenue".

While at the first glance [considering Trump’s comments], this might seem to be a heavy hit to Iran’s economy in the near future but a close look into the country’s export data could reveal Trump’s great miscalculations. In fact, this could even be considered a “blessing in disguise” for the country’s minerals and metal industry.

In a press conference last June, Iranian Deputy Industry, Mining and Trade Minister Jafar Sarqini said the ministry has taken necessary measures to maintain the country’s metal exports despite U.S. sanctions.

According to the official, Iran’s annual steel production is planned to reach 45 million tons by the Iranian calendar year 1400 (March 2021-March 2022).

EF/MA