TEHRAN – Domestically production of items, imports of which are banned due to sanctions is a high priority of the vice presidency for science and technology, the vice president Sourena Sattari announced, IRNA reported on Tuesday.

Industries like drug manufacturing can have a great role in solving problems emerging from sanctions, he said.

He named supporting knowledge-based companies and innovation ecosystem as other programs of the vice presidency.

The knowledge-based companies are active in 30 to 40 kinds of ecosystems, which should be supported by the development funds and banks, he said.

The vice presidency supports research centers, state-run universities and private sector, which have a great role in innovation ecosystem.

In mid-April, Sattari announced that the number of knowledge-based companies were 3,000 ones during the Iranian calendar year 1395 (March 2016-March 2017), it increased to 3,338 ones during the Iranian calendar year 1396 (March 2017-March 2018).

Knowledge-based companies exported $450 million of products in the previous Iranian calendar year 1397, which ended on March 20, he announced.

Sattari said that the knowledge-based companies sold 900 trillion rials (about $21 billion) of products during the past year.

Meanwhile, the vice presidency announced that Iranian knowledge-based companies have created job opportunities for 140,000 applicants until the end of the Iranian calendar year 1397 (March 20, 2019).

SB/MQ/MG