TEHRAN – Iranian Industry, Mining, and Trade Ministry plans to inaugurate 200 major industrial, mining, and trade projects across the country by the Iranian calendar year of 1400 (begins on March 20, 2021), IRNA reported.

According to Deputy Industry, Mining, and Trade Minister Saeed Zarandi, the said projects are going to be implemented under a new program called “Persistent Production-Effective Employment-Sustainable Exports”.

As reported, some 1.69 quadrillion rials (about $40.23 billion) has been invested in the mentioned projects that are going to create job opportunities for 41,000 people.

In terms of the number of projects, Kerman Province with 26 projects and in terms of the volume of investment, Khuzestan Province with nearly 360 trillion rials (about $8.57 billion), have the largest share of the said projects in the country, Zarandi said.

He noted that the said projects, which are characterized by factors like completing the industry’s value chain, reducing imports, being export-oriented, using technology, and creating jobs, have been selected as national projects.

Currently, there are 12,500 projects with physical progress of over 60 percent across the country, of which 6,000 are related to leading and prioritized industries, according to the official.

In the current Iranian calendar year which has been named the year of “surge in production” by the Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran Seyed Ali Khamenei, the government is determined to support domestic production and promote the country’s none-oil exports.

The “Persistent Production-Effective Employment-Sustainable Exports” program has been defined by the Industry, Mining, and Trade Ministry in line with the government’s new strategies for developing the country’s infrastructure in order to realize the “Surge in Production” motto.

A same program (called “A-B-Iran”) was also defined by the Energy Ministry last year, under which numerous energy projects were inaugurated in various provinces across the country.

EF/MA