TEHRAN- Car manufacturing in Iran increased 18 percent during the first nine months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 21-December 21, 2022), as compared to the same period of time in the past year, according to the data released by the Ministry of Industry, Mining and Trade.

Based on the ministry’s data, 876,000 vehicles were manufactured in the nine-month period of this year, while the figure was 743,000 in the same time span of the previous year.

The highest production during this period was related to the category of passenger cars with 760,000 vehicles, which constitutes 86.7 percent of the total production. This amount of production has grown by 13 percent compared to the output in the first nine months of the past year.

Also, the highest production growth of car manufacturing was recorded in the van sector with 360 percent. As reported, 2,500 vans were manufactured in the nine-month period of this year, while the figure was just 550 vehicles in the same period of time in the previous year.

Manufacturing of buses and minibuses also rose 49 percent to stand at 1,760 vehicles.

Also, 23,000 heavy vehicles were manufactured in the nine-month period, registering about 166 percent growth year on year.

According to the ministry’s report, in the ninth month of this year, about 128,000 cars were manufactured in the country, which is the highest monthly car production in the last five years. This statistic also shows a five percent increase compared to the eighth month.

Two months ago, Abdollah Tavakoli Lahijani, the director-general of the ministry’s car industries office, said: “We can now say that the production trend stabilization has been formed in the country's automobile industry”, and expressed hope that after the restoration of the production trend, the development of new platforms and the production of quality and competitive products in the car industry of the country should gain more momentum, as this is considered important in the second step of the transformative program of the Ministry of Industry, Mining, and Trade.

MA/MA