TEHRAN – The head of the Iranian parliament’s economic committee has said lack of a strategic roadmap has been the main hurdle in the way of the country’s economic development, IRIB reported.

“Lack of a strategic document for development in the country's economy has overshadowed many parts of the economy,” Mohammadreza Pour-Ebrahimi told the national TV on Sunday evening.

He pointed to the home appliance industry as an example and said: “Advanced knowledge, resources, and skilled manpower are among the advantages in this field, but it seems that lack of comprehensive strategies in using the necessary capacities to partner with other countries in regional and global scale is one of our main gaps in this sector.”

The official further mentioned some other problems in the way of expanding domestic production and economic growth and said that smuggling is a major problem that has created serious problems in the way of domestic production and the government is taking serious measures to battle it.

Speaking to the same TV program, Deputy Industry, Mining, and Trade Minister Mehdi Sadeqi Niaraki mentioned the insufficient growth in the production of home appliances in the current Iranian calendar year (started on March 21), saying: “In the first four months of the current year, 40 percent growth was recorded in production compared to the same period last year, however, the growth for the previous year’s same period compared to its preceding year was recorded to be 70 percent.”

“In recent months, however, a suitable amount of foreign currency has been provided in order to supply raw material for domestic producers and such materials are properly imported into the country,” he said.

“We currently need about 220 trillion rials (about $5.2 billion) of working capital annually in the home appliance industry, which must be provided by banks and producers,” Niaraki added.

The home appliances sector has been one of the pioneers in this regard and like many other areas, the production of home appliances has witnessed a significant rise in the past two years so that in the Iranian calendar year 1398 (ended on March 19) this industry’s production capacity increased by 10 percent compared to the preceding year.

EF/MA