TEHRAN- Iran produced 4.5 million tons of cement during the previous Iranian calendar month (ended on August 22), the director-general of the Industry, Mining and Trade Ministry’s Mineral Industries Office announced.

Speaking in a meeting with the Industry Minister Reza Fatemi Amin for exploring issues related to market regulation and promoting exports, Seifollah Amiri said there is no problem in the production and supply of cement in the country, IRNA reported on Sunday.

“Ten regional groups have been formed for assessing and managing the cement market and we have had various meetings with consumers, producers and the operators of Ofogh system [which is a system for monitoring prices of various commodities in the domestic market],” Amiri said.

The official further noted that 10,500 major cement consumers have registered at Iran Mercantile Exchange (IME) to buy this product, adding: “This figure used to be 5,000 consumers, and if commodity exchange brokerages are more active in this area the figure will increase even more.”

He went on saying that over 62 cement producers are currently offering their products at IME and 52 units are also offering their shares at the Tehran Stock Exchange.

According to Amiri, the measures taken by the government for managing the cement market has caused the prices of this product to decline over the past few months.

Iran's cement industry has a history of more than eight decades of activity. With an annual production capacity of 87 million tons, this industry holds the world’s sixth place in terms of production capacity.

Currently, there are 96 cement production lines active in 74 factories across Iran, nearly half of them are less than 10 years old. This is an indication that new production units have a greater share of the total output in this sector.

According to the secretary of Cement Industry Employers Association Abdolreza Sheikhan, Iran produced 68.3 million tons of cement during the past Iranian calendar year (ended on March 20) and the annual output can reach over 70 million tons in the current year.

The country’s annual cement consumption stands at about 65 million tons and the annual exports of the commodity chain are over 11 million tons.

Neighboring countries are not only the consumers of Iranian cement but also demand the transfer of the cement industry’s technology to their countries.

EF/MA