TEHRAN – The head of the Association of Iran Textile Industries has outlined the expectations of the country’s textile industry from the new government in an interview with IRIB on Sunday.

According to Mojataba Dastmalchian, un authorized imports of garments, lack of the necessary funding for production units and the need for modernization of machinery and equipment are the main challenges of Iran’s textile industry that the new government should pay special attention to.

The official noted that despite the law banning the imports of goods that have similar domestic equivalents, many clothing and textile items are imported officially or smuggled into the country and this has put the industry under pressure and doesn’t allow it to growth.

“We expect that the ban on the import of similar goods will be considered more seriously in the textile industry by the new government,” Dastmalchian stressed.

He also mentioned to the old age of the industry's machines, and said: "In the textile industry, due to the long life of the machines, we need to restore and modernize them, but unfortunately, it is not possible to register orders for textile machinery, and we expect this concern of textile operators to be solved."

About $500 million of textile products were exported from Iran in the previous Iranian calendar year (March 21, 2023 to March 19, 2024).

In this period, most of the country’s textile products were exported to Iraq, Afghanistan and Russia.

The three countries accounted for 26, 18 and 6.0 percent share of Iran’s total textile exports, respectively.

The majority of the textile products were exported from the country through the Kashan Customs Office, followed by Mashhad and West Tehran customs.

Also $2.2 billion of textile products were imported into the country from March 21, 2023, to March 19, 2024, showing a 12 percent growth compared to a year earlier.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE), China and Turkey were the main countries that exported textile products to Iran in this period

Back in October 2023, Secretary of the Association of Iran Textile Industries Shojaeddin Emami Rauf said annual export from the country’s textile industry stands at $560 million, while the imports are currently about $1.880 billion.

“The imports in the textile industry are currently $1.880 billion, which includes the import of yarn, clothing, fabric, etc.,” Emami Rauf said.

According to the official, approximately $680 million of the above-mentioned figure is related to the imports of fabrics.

“We have a big gap in the weaving industry and investment should be made in this field; with a small investment we can reduce the imports in this sector and turn raw materials into domestic products,” the official said.

“If the government supports weaving units, we can also invest in the spinning and dye sector and increase exports while preventing currency outflow,” he added.

According to Emami Rauf, the Iranian textile industry has the capacity to increase exports by 3-4 times.

EF/MA