TEHRAN – Head of Iran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture (ICCIMA) Gholam-Hossein Shafeie has said the country’s industrial sector is in urgent need of technological improvement and modernization, the ICCIMA portal reported.

Speaking in a meeting with the members of the Parliament Planning and Budget Committee on Saturday, Shafeie said that technological upgrading and modernization of machinery is a great need of the industry sector, which will practically face a dead end with the cancellation of the tax exemption for the import of machinery.

Referring to the challenges of the industrial sector in the country’s current economic conditions, the ICCIMA head said: “One of our important issues in the production and industry sector is the serious technology gap compared to global competitors. On the other hand, the depreciation of machinery has caused the cost of production to increase significantly and the conditions for competition to become even harder.”

Mentioning a decision for the cancellation of the tax exemption for the imports of industrial machinery, the official said that this issue has caused serious concerns for the country’s productive sector because if the importers of machinery are not exempted from paying tax it won’t be economically justifiable for them to continue to do so.

“Although there are discussions to amend this decision and some measures have also been taken, there is still a serious concern in this regard for the country's productive sector, and the parliament can play a very important role in this regard,” Shafeie added.

Referring to the possibility of the JCPOA talks reaching an agreement, the ICCIMA head underlined the necessity of having foresight in this regard and emphasized: “if an agreement is reached, the result for the country will be the increase of oil revenues; so, there is the concern that the same strategies as before will be followed and the generated revenues will not be allocated enough to the development of productive and infrastructure sectors.”

“The Planning and Budget Committee should take the necessary measures in this regard so that the mentioned capital is directed to the productive and infrastructure sectors,” he stressed.

EF/MA