TEHRAN- The head of Iran Small Industries and Industrial Parks Organization (ISIPO) announced that 5,000 hectares of land will be added to the industrial parks of the country in the current Iranian calendar year (began on March 21).

Explaining the role of small industries and industrial parks in the growth of production in a TV program, Ali Rasoulian also announced that the establishment of 1,057 industrial parks in the country has been approved, adding that there are 858 active industrial parks and zones in Iran, where more than one million people are directly employed in the form of entrepreneurs and employees of production units.

The official further announced that 51,000 production units are active in the field of chemicals, metals, non-metallic minerals, foods, textiles, and other sectors in the industrial parks and zones of the country.

The ISIPO head has stressed that reviving idle production units is the main approach that the government is currently following in the industry sector.

The government is seriously pursuing its programs to resolve production units' problems in collaboration with the private sector; Very good planning has been done in this regard, Ali Rasoulian has stated.

As announced by the ISIPO head, 1,714 idle production units were revived in the country during the past year.

Referring to the Leader's emphasis on knowledge-based employment last year, Rasoulian said: “We have formulated a coherent operational package to support knowledge-based companies and considered incentives and advantages for giving land to such companies.”

He added: "Last year, we gave land to more than a hundred knowledge-based companies, and we managed to meet 107 out of 378 technological needs of these companies, which were previously met from abroad, inside the country."

Pointing out that a good relationship has been established between knowledge-based companies and large enterprises, the deputy industry, mining and trade minister announced that 120 companies were added to the list of knowledge-based companies last year.

“We agreed with the Technology Department of the Ministry of Science to establish knowledge-based parks in industrial estates so that companies can take advantage of these parks”, he added.

Referring to this year’s slogan, which is “Inflation Control, Production Growth”, Rasoulian said: “We must control inflation and increase production because these two have serious effects on each other.”

He called providing industrial infrastructure and supporting small industries as requirements for production growth and said: “Supporting small industries and providing their financial resources and involving the private sector are our goals.”

Stating that handing over affairs to the private sector is one of the policies of the Ministry of Industry, Mining and Trade, the official emphasized: “It is easier to revive the stagnant units than to provide financial support to the units, and therefore we are trying to connect the driving companies to the stagnant units.”

The ISIPO head further announced the preparation of investment packages for the participation of the private sector and said: “We are creating workshops for small enterprises and are identifying enterprises with competitive products.”

According to Rasoulian, the approach of reviving the idle units is very important since the country has been dealing with the most severe international sanctions for many years; and it relies more than ever on domestic production.

Of course, what is seen as the result of the efforts of the ISIPO, as one of the main organizations in charge of boosting the country's production, planning and diligent follow-up to revive the stagnant production units, fortunately, the work in this due is on the right track, the official has stated, highlighting that revival of each stagnant production and industrial unit leads to job creation and return to work of 18 people on average.

MA