TEHRAN – Iranian industry, mining and trade minister said increasing exports from the mining sector to the neighboring countries has been put on the ministry’s agenda for the current fiscal year, ILNA reported on Saturday.

“In this regard, in the upcoming months, over 1 quadrillion rials (about $23.8 billion) worth of projects are going to go operational in this sector,” Reza Rahmani said.

According to the official, the figure is going to reach 3 quadrillion rials ($71.4 billion) in the next three years.

Rahmani further mentioned a one-million-dollar project in the steel industry which is due to be inaugurated in the next Iranian calendar month (July 23-August 22).

Earlier this week, head of Iranian Mines and Mining Industries Development and Renovation Organization (IMIDRO) said the organization is planning to establish a consortium in order to accelerate exploration projects in the mining sector.

“The consortium is going to help us in areas like exploration and identification of new mines and minerals,” Khodadad Gharibpour said.

According to the official, based on the mining potentials and research and academic capabilities of the country’s provinces, 10 mining regions have been defined in order to manage projects and also utilize the country’s academic potentials in this industry.

Gharibpour noted that in the framework of the country’s Sixth National Five-Year Development Plan (2016-2021), efficiency, productivity and maximum utilization of the capacities of the country’s mining industry have been given great importance and so should be considered in every step from exploration up to the production processes.

In late May, Gharibpour had said that the country’s mining sector currently requires 18 billion euros of investment.

“The mining sector is one of the country’s most profitable areas for investment so that 30 percent of the profits in the capital market is pertained to the mining and mineral sector,” he said.

IMIDRO currently has $3 billion worth of projects underway and it also intends to renovate 5,000 industrial units using 100 trillion rials (about $2.38 billion) of investment during the current Iranian calendar year (started on March 21).

EF/MA