TEHRAN – Iran’s newly appointed industry, mining, and trade minister has said his ministry is planning to limit the exports of raw materials and to boost the exports of finished steel products, Shata reported on Friday.

Speaking to the press on the sidelines of the inauguration ceremony of a steel plant development project in Fars Province, Alireza Razm Hosseini said: “One of the strategic plans and priorities of the Ministry of Industry, Mining and Trade is the completion of the country’s industrial chains, including steel, and fortunately this goal has been achieved in some provinces.”

“We must move towards the exports of finished steel products,” he stressed, adding: “by preventing the sales of raw materials, we ensure creating more employment.”

"We have the completion of the chain of all industries, including copper, aluminum, etc., on the agenda and we will seriously follow up on this plan,” Razm Hosseini continued.

In a bid to prevent the exports of unprocessed minerals, creating more value-added and meeting the requirements of domestic producers for the raw materials, Iran has levied a 25-percent duty on the exports of raw minerals (especially iron ore) since late September 2019.

According to the Deputy Industry, Mining, and Trade Minister Darioush Esmaili, 10 years ago Iran exported more than 20 million tons of unprocessed iron ore and the figure fell to a maximum of six million tons last year.

The deputy minister noted that exports of the mentioned commodity have also fallen to 500,000 tons in the first three months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20-June 20).

EF/MA