TEHRAN – Developing domestic production and cutting reliance on external sources for meeting the country’s needs have become one of the main priorities of the Iranian government over the past few years, and especially since the re-imposition of the U.S. sanctions in 2018.

This goal has been pursued in various sectors including agriculture, industry, mining, petrochemicals, and oil industry.

The industry and mining sectors, as major pillars of the Iranian economy, have been especially the focus for the said programs and to this due, last year a comprehensive program was defined in the Industry, Mining, and Trade Ministry for promoting domestic production and supporting production units in these fields.

The industry ministry’s programs in the current Iranian calendar year (started on March 21) which has been named the year of “Production: Support and Elimination of Obstacles.” by the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Seyed Ali Khamenei, include reviving idle units and providing bank facilities for the country’s production units and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Management of imports and development of non-oil exports, development of mines and mining industries, development of technology and knowledge-based products, market management and organization of commercial logistics, improving the business environment and ultimately providing financial resources to the producers, and investment development have also been among the ministry’s major programs this year.

Following the mentioned programs, the production of 20 major mining and industrial products has increased in the first four months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 21-July 22), compared to the same period of time in the past year, according to the Industry, Mining and Trade Ministry data.

The mentioned products include all kinds of home appliances (washing machines, refrigerators, air conditioners, etc.), passenger and heavy vehicles, and mining industry products including steel, copper, aluminum, cement, ceramic tiles, etc.

Based on the ministry data, washing machines, edible vegetable oil, combines and aluminum ingots were the top produced items in the said four months.

In the said time span, domestic manufacturers of home appliances managed to produce 1.47 million sets of various products to register 17.2 percent rise compared to the previous year’s same period.

The manufacturers produced 430,000 units of washing machines in the mentioned four months, registering a 36.2 percent increase compared to the previous year’s same period.

The production of freezers and refrigerators also increased 20.4 percent to reach 692,000 units.

The production of various types of vehicles also increased significantly in the mentioned time span. During this period, more than 292,500 units of passenger cars, 22,415 trucks, 538 buses, minibusses, and vans, 216 combine harvesters, and 5,937 tractors have been manufactured in the country.

Production of petrochemical products also registered a 3.8 percent increase in the mentioned four months to reach 21 million tons.

Also, more than 9.6 million tons of crude steel was produced in the period under review, which indicates a growth of 1.5 percent compared to the same period last year.

The production of copper cathode, chinaware and glass products were 100,000 tons, 19,600 tons, and 442,400 tons, respectively, which shows a growth of 5.3 percent in the production of copper cathode, an increase of nearly 31 percent in chinaware products, and a growth of 30 percent for glass products compared to the same period in the previous year.

The growth in the manufacturing of the mentioned products has been achieved despite the specific economic conditions of the country due to the U.S. sanctions and the outbreak of coronavirus which has created problems in the production sector.

EF/MA