TEHRAN – Iran’s Acting Industry, Mining, and Trade Minister Hossein Modares Khiabani says the country’s home appliance manufacturers currently have the capacity to produce 20 million units every year, IRIB reported.

According to Khiabani, the knowledge for manufacturing up to 70 percent of the home appliances in Iran has been indigenized by local companies.

The official noted that for some devices like air coolers, 90 percent of the products are locally-made, but for some others like TV sets the figure is something between 60 and 70 percent.

Mentioning some of the challenges that this sector is currently facing, like the turbulence of the foreign exchange market, Khiabani said despite all the problems, the production of home appliances has increased significantly in the current Iranian calendar year 1399 (started on March 20).

“For example, in the first quarter of 1399, we saw a 150 percent increase in production of washing machines and a 50 percent increase in TV sets production,” he said.

Khiabani emphasized that the ministry is trying to solve the problems of the manufacturers by making necessary coordination to supply the foreign exchange revenues from the exports of raw materials to the home appliance manufacturers to import their necessary equipment and materials.

In recent years, the Iranian government has been following a new strategy for supporting domestic production in order to neutralize the impacts of the U.S. sanctions while reducing the reliance of the economy on oil revenues.

In this regard, the home appliance sector has been one of the major points of focus, since for a long time a big share of this market has been taken by foreign companies.

Accordingly, the production of home appliances has witnessed a significant rise in the past two years so that in the previous calendar year 1398 (ended on March 19) this industry’s production capacity increased by 10 percent compared to the preceding year.

Based on Industry, Mining and Trade Ministry data, in the previous year, 1,168,700 refrigerators and freezers were produced in the country, an increase of 7.8 percent compared to the preceding year 1397 (ended on March 20, 2019), while domestic companies produced 732,200 washing machines, to register a 32-percent increase year on year.

Also, the production of water air conditioners increased by 6.3 percent to 904,900 units during the said period.

EF/MA