TEHRAN - The 12th meeting of the Tehran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture (TCCIMA)’s Industry and Mining Committee was held on Saturday to discuss smart mining and the ways of supplying the machinery needed by the mining industry.

The meeting was attended by mining sector’s officials including Mohammad Fatemi, head of the Association of Iranian Heavy Machinery for Construction, Mining and Roads (Manufactures and Importers), and Head of TCCIMA Industry and Mining Committee Ali Naghib, the TCCIMA portal reported.

During the gathering, the attendees discussed various issues related to the smartening of Iran's mines, and the outcomes of the previous meeting of the committee, which was dedicated to evaluating the development strategies and supply mining machinery were also discussed.

Speaking at the meeting, Naghib, who attended the meeting virtually, referred to the positive outcomes of the previous meeting of the committee and said: “One of the results of this meeting was that the government has agreed to allow the import of 500 heavy mining machinery.”

He then expressed hope that such meetings would lead to an improvement in the business environment in the mining sector.

Further in the meeting, Sajad Ghoroghi, the deputy chairman of the committee, also pointed out that one of the problems of the mining sector is the lack of the necessary machinery, and said: "This issue has become severe to the point that we even have problems in supplying second-hand machinery to the mines."

“Therefore, it is necessary to meet this need through a combination of imports and domestic production,” he added.

Emphasizing that "Smartening and the use of new technologies pave the way for increasing mining productivity", Ghoroghi pointed to the most important technologies that nowadays are being used by the mining industry across the world, such as artificial intelligence, automation, robotics, blockchain, and augmented reality (AR).

Elsewhere in the meeting, Vahid Vaziri, advisor to the Committee, presented a report on smart mining experiences in a number of mines around the world.

According to Vaziri, studies show that mines with an annual production of more than 10 million tons have the most use of new technologies.

EF/MA