TEHRAN - The 77th meeting of the dialogue council of the government and the Tehran Province’s private sector was held on Thursday, in which issues pertaining to the supply of raw materials, especially steel sheets, for the province’s industrial units was discussed.

The meeting was attended by the Governor of Tehran Province Anushirvan Mohseni, the Head of Tehran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture (TCCIMA) Masoud Khansari, the Deputy Industry Minister Mehdi Sadeqi Niaraki, and the representatives of the province private sector, the TCCIMA portal reported.

Speaking in the meeting, Niaraki presented a report on the latest situation of supply and demand of various types of steel sheets and the measures taken by the ministry for creating transparency in the distribution and supply of these products.

According to Niaraki, currently, the Industry Ministry supplies over 1,180 production units with subsidized steel sheets, however, some units are going to be eliminated due to inactivity or lack of production.

Noting that currently, about 20,000 industrial units across the country are major consumers of steel sheets, he said: “this number of production units need about 70 million tons of steel sheets per year, while the supply is about five million tons.”

He further referred to some measures taken by the Industry Ministry to regulate the supply of steel products, including a special supply of steel sheets for automakers and home appliance industries, as well as setting a zero percent tariff for importing steel sheets with a thickness of less than three millimeters.

Elsewhere in the meeting, representatives of some steel companies also raised some issues and offered solutions to resolve the problems in the way of the supply of steel products, which they said has plagued downstream manufacturing units, including auto parts makers and the home appliance industry.

Reforming the distribution system of steel products and the activation of the country’s idle steel sheet production capacity were among the solutions mentioned by the attendees.

EF/MA

Photo: Governor of Tehran Province Anushirvan Mohseni (1st L), the TCCIMA Head Masoud Khansari (2nd L), the Deputy Industry Minister Mehdi Sadeqi Niaraki (2nd R)