TEHRAN- Head of Iran’s Agricultural Mechanization Development Center (AMDC) announced that 120 trillion rials (about $2.857 billion) of investment has been made for agricultural mechanization in the country since the Iranian calendar year of 1392 (started on March 21, 2013).

Kambiz Abbasi also said that 14.6 trillion rials (about $347.6 million) of facilities have been paid from the eighth credit line opened in this due, during the first half of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20-September 21).

According to the official, the agriculture ministry has been allocating a separate credit line for the mechanization of the agriculture sector every year, so that since the Iranian calendar year of 1392 so far, eight credit lines have been opened for this sector.

Statistics show that there is an annual demand for 25 trillion rials (about $595 million) of facilities for the development and modernization of agricultural machinery.

According to Abbasi since over 95 percent of the technology and knowledge in this area is domestic, despite the U.S. sanctions most of the goals in the mechanization of various agriculture sectors will be achieved without any problems.

In the past forty years, since the Islamic Revolution, Iran has witnessed a remarkable improvement in various sectors and the agriculture industry has been one of the areas in which the country has undergone huge development.

Iran’s agricultural mechanization coefficient has currently reached 1.65 horsepower per hectare and this figure is set to increase to 2.1 horsepower.

Implementing billions of dollars worth of development, research, and educational projects across the country is an indication of the significant improvements in this sector.

MA/MA