TEHRAN – Iranian President Hassan Rouhani inaugurated five major industrial projects worth 56 trillion rials (about $1.3 billion) in three provinces on Thursday, IRNA reported.

As reported, the said projects were inaugurated in Fras, Khuzestan, and Mazandaran provinces in the eighth week of the Industry, Mining, and Trade Ministry’s “Persistent Production-Effective Employment-Sustainable Exports” program.

Based on the mentioned program, the Industry Ministry plans to inaugurate 200 major industrial, mining, and trade projects across the country by the Iranian calendar year of 1400 (begins on March 21, 2021).

The inaugurated projects included some steel projects in southwestern Khuzestan province, a sodium carbonate production plant, and two wheat silos in central Fars province and a medium-density fiber (MDF) board production plant in northern Mazandaran province.

The mentioned projects are going to create more than 1,700 direct job opportunities in the said provinces.

Speaking in the inauguration ceremony, Rouhani noted that these inaugurations are an indication of the industry sector’s significance in the country and the importance that the government puts over this sector.

“A large portion of the burden of the country's needs and non-oil exports, as well as the country's development and production, is borne by the industry sector,” Rouhani said in the ceremony.

Meanwhile, the Acting Industry, Mining and Trade Minister Hossein Modarres Khiabani, who traveled to Sari in Mazandaran Province to inaugurate the MDF production complex, stated that so far 38 major industrial and mining projects with 200 trillion rials (about $47.6 billion) of investment have been inaugurated and 6,000 jobs have been created under the framework of the “Persistent Production-Effective Employment-Sustainable Exports” program.

The Industry Ministry’s “Persistent Production-Effective Employment-Sustainable Exports” program was introduced following the implementation of A-B-Iran scheme by the Energy Ministry in which several water and electricity projects are going operational in various provinces across the country on a weekly basis.

EF/MA