TEHRAN- The vice chairman of Iranian Parliament’s Industries and Mines Committee said that the complete chain of steel will be offered at the country’s mercantile exchange soon.

Ali Jedi said that this committee’s plan in this due is being finalized, based on which the complete chain of steel will be offered at Iran Mercantile Exchange (IME), and the surplus products will be exported.

A small amount of steel is currently offered in the stock exchange, which is less than 40 percent of the domestic consumption, he lamented.

Last month, a member of the parliament’s Industries and Mines Committee had said that the parliament would soon draft a plan based on which the complete steel chain should be offered at Iran Mercantile Exchange.

Allah-Verdi Dehqani said, “Given the nature of IME, which is transparency and real price discovery based on the supply and demand, through offering the complete steel chain in this exchange, not only is corruption and rent-seeking prevented, but the extra offered commodities can be exported under the appropriate condition.”

The MP said that the parliament’s plan is aimed at the supply of steel required in the domestic market through the commodity exchange and also supporting steel exports.

Iranian steel industry, which plays a significant role both in materializing the country’s motto of achieving self-reliance and in boosting the non-oil exports, has been in a development route in recent years.

According to a report released by the World Steel Association (WSA), Iran’s crude steel production increased by 30 percent in 2019 while the average global growth in this sector stood at 3.5 percent.

The steel sector is being noticeably developed, and through implementing different projects in recent years a good market has been formed for the steel and steel products, but there is still some controversy over the prices, and some dispute between the upstream and downstream industries in this regard.

Offering the complete steel chain at Iran Mercantile Exchange is said to be the solution to this problem.

It is believed to put an end to all the challenges in terms of price, as this strategy will let the market discover the real price, considering the benefits of upstream and downstream units.

Also as stated by the IME Managing Director Hamed Soltaninejad, the IME lays the ground for transparent competition.

He says that if the complete chain of steel is offered in this exchange, transparency will dominate trades in the whole steel sector.

“Transparency should not be just for some sectors of the industry, while the whole industry including the downstream sector should enjoy transparent condition”, according to Soltaninejad.

MA/MA