TEHRAN – Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has expressed satisfaction with the country’s petrochemical industry for increasing production in recent years, Shana reported.

Speaking in a meeting of the government economic coordination headquarters on Sunday, Rouhani expressed appreciation for the increase in the level of production in strategic commodities such as steel and petrochemicals, saying: "These goods were among imported commodities into the country years ago and have now become export opportunities for the country."

He mentioned the supply of goods at reasonable prices as one of the main programs of the government along with the production boom and said: “The process of pricing the goods should become more transparent by reforming the production and, distribution processes."

The president also expressed appreciation for the country’s businessmen, exporters, entrepreneurs, and major economic players’ cooperation and compliance with the government programs to move away from the oil-dependent economy toward a more productive one.

The official underlined the failure of the U.S. plans for crippling Iran’s economy through maximum pressure and said: “Today, after more than two years of sanctions, the government, with the cooperation of the people and economic actors, has succeeded not only in providing basic and essential goods for people but also in providing raw materials for the productive sectors, while being able to even accelerate the production.”

In late December 2019, President Rouhani had stressed the significant role of the petrochemical industry in the country’s economy in the face of U.S. sanctions, saying that it is at the forefront of the country’s non-oil exports.

Earlier this month, National Petrochemical Company (NPC)'s Production Control Manager Jalal Mirhashemi had announced that the output of Iranian petrochemical production units in the first 50 days of the current Iranian calendar year (started on March 19) increased by six percent compared to the previous year’s same period.

According to Mirhashemi, the country’s petrochemical complexes are producing with the desired capacity, and many complexes have shown production growth since the beginning of the current year.

He said that Iran's petrochemical industry is ready to realize the “surge in production” intended for the current year, adding that in addition to launching and operating new projects, the existing idle capacity of some complexes will also be used with the measures taken. 

The current Iranian calendar year (began on March 20) is named as the year of “Surge in Production” by the Leader of Islamic Revolution Seyed Ali Khamenei.

The petrochemical industry is playing a crucial role in Iran's non-oil economy, so that based on official data, petrochemical exports constitute the second-largest hard currency earner in Iran after crude oil. Petrochemical exports already make up nearly 33 percent of the country’s non-oil exports.

EF/MA