TEHRAN- Iran’s crude steel production reached 18.625 million tons in the first eight months of 2020 to register an 11.3-percent increase year on year, Mehr news agency reported.

The country’s steel output stood at 16.739 million in the previous year’s same eight months.

The increase in the Iranian steel production comes as the production of most of the world’s top steel producers has fallen due to the negative impacts of the coronavirus outbreak.

As reported, among the world’s 64 steel producers, only nine, including China (the world's largest steel producer), Iran, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Egypt, Chile, Turkey, Norway, and Australia, saw production growth in the said period, and 55 countries were faced with declining production.

The Iranian steel industry also outshined the world producers in this sector during the first seven months of 2020, as based on the WSA report Iran produced 16.335 million tons of the mentioned commodity during the January-July period of 2020, 10.8 percent more than the figure in the same seven months of 2019.

The world’s 64 top steel producers managed to produce 1.27 billion tons of crude steel in the said period, 5.3 percent less than the output for the last year’s same seven months.

Iran’s crude steel production had also increased by 30 percent in 2019 while the average global growth in this sector stood at 3.5 percent.

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.

Last month, a board member of the Iranian Steel Producers Association (ISPA) told IRNA that Iran has the capacity to export 15 million tons of steel per annum.

EF/MA