TEHRAN- South Khorasan province, in the east of Iran, exported $7.209 million of cement during the first seven months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 21-October 22), a provincial official announced.

Hamed Hassan-Nejad, the deputy head of the province’s Industry, Mining and Trade Department for industrial affairs, said 276,795 tons of cement was exported from South Khorasan during the seven-month period, and named Afghanistan and Iraq as the export destinations.

The official said that 802,000 tons of cement was produced by two production units of the province during the mentioned time span.

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 plants 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.

In early June, Iran’s biggest cement production line was put into operation in northern Alborz Province’s Abyek Cement Complex in a ceremony attended by the Industry, Mining, and Trade Minister Alireza Razm Hosseini.

Speaking at the inauguration ceremony, the minister said, “The country that once imported cement has today become one of the countries exporting this product”.

The official also mentioned the 13-percent growth of cement production in the country and added: "Apart from the production growth, indigenizing the knowledge for the production of equipment and machinery in this sector is also of significant importance."

According to Razm Hosseini, currently, more than 80 percent of the country’s cement production units have been established by domestic companies.

Emphasizing the Industry Ministry’s policy for supporting domestic production, he referred to the long history of the cement industry in the country and note that this industry is a great contributor to the development of the country’s infrastructure.

MA/MA