TEHRAN – Iranian Industry, Mining, and Trade Minister Reza Fatemi-Amin has said the country’s automotive industry is going to undergo a complete reform after the implementation of his ministry’s two-year evolution program, IRNA reported on Tuesday.

Stating that nine transformation projects have been prepared for the automobile industry, Fatemi-Amin said: "The general plan is that in [the Iranian calendar year] 1401 (begins on March 21) the structure of the automobile industry and the relations between parts manufacturers and automakers will be reformed and the overall promised production target will be achieved in [the Iranian calendar year] 1404 (begins in March 2025)."

The minister considered the current situation of the automotive industry very problematic and added: "We have done a lot of work in the automotive industry and we have had good successes and progress, but the result has not been satisfactory for the general public and the customers."

Referring to the complexities of the automotive industry, he noted: “A car has more than 2,000 parts and every day 4,000 cars are produced in the country; We do not have any other industries with such managerial, economic and technological complexities.”

In late December 2021, Fatemi-Amin had announced that his ministry prepared a nine-axis program for evolution in the automotive industry which would be published soon.

The mentioned program includes all challenges and solutions in this industry, the minister said.

"Our plan is to produce 1.6 million vehicles next year (begins in March 2022), which will increase to three million units in [the Iranian calendar year] 1404 (begins in March 2025), and 30 percent of the production, equivalent to about one million units, should be sent to export markets," the official added.

“Car is one of the most political products and important issues in the country, which on the one hand is highly challenged and on the other hand has various capacities”, the official stated.

Pricing should be such that domestic manufacturing has an advantage, the minister further reiterated.

Based on the latest data released by the Codal website, car manufacturing in Iran rose 2.3 percent during the first nine months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 21-December 21, 2021), as compared to the same period of time in the past year.

The data show that Iranian carmakers manufactured 669,320 vehicles in the nine-month period of this year, while the figure was 653,761 in the same time span of the previous year.

During the said nine months, Iran Khodro Company (IKCO) manufactured 325,557 vehicles, which was six percent less than the output in the same time span of the previous year.

Iran currently stands in 20th place among the world’s top automobile manufacturers producing 821,060 vehicles by the end of 2019, according to the Organisation Internationale des Constructeurs d'Automobiles (OICA).

EF/MA