TEHRAN – Iranian steel industry has outshined the world producers in this sector during the first 10 months of 2020, as based on the World Steel Association (WSA) Iran produced 23.8 million tons of the mentioned commodity during the January-October period, 12.6 percent more than the figure in the same 10 months of 2019.

According to the WSA data, the average growth of crude steel production in the world during the mentioned period was negative two percent.

The country also produced 2.66 million tons of crude steel in October, registering an increase of 28 percent compared to the same month in 2019.

The world’s 64 top steel producers managed to produce 1.511 billion tons of crude steel in the first 10 months of this year which is two percent less than the production of the same period last year.

The total production of the mentioned countries also reached 161.8 million tons in October, seven percent more than the output for the last year’s same month.

Based on the mentioned report, during the said time span, steel production of the European Union countries fell 16.7 percent, CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) fell 1.9 percent, North America fell 17.4 percent, South America fell 12 percent, and Oceania experienced a decrease of 1.8 percent.

In contrast, production in Asia grew by an average of 1.4 percent and West Asia’s steel output grew by eight percent.

According to the former Acting Minister of Industry, Mining and Trade Hossein Modares Khiabani, the production capacity of the country's steel chain has increased from 123 million tons in the Iranian calendar year 1392 (ended in March 2014) to 230 million tons in the current year (started on March 19).

The Iranian Steel industry has been constantly developing over the past years against all the pressures and obstacles created by the outside forces like the U.S. sanctions and the coronavirus outbreak that has severely affected the performance of the world’s top producers.

EF/MA