TEHRAN- Iran exported 7.372 million tons of steel ingots in the past Iranian calendar year 1401 (ended on March 20), the Iranian Steel Producers Association (ISPA) announced.

The country’s steel ingot export fell four percent in 1401, as compared to 1400 when the figure was 7.678 million tons.

The World Steel Association (WSA) in its latest report announced that Iran's steel production registered a significant growth of 21 percent in the first two months of 2023, compared to the same period last year.

Based on the WSA data, Iran produced 5.1 million tons of steel in the two-month period of this year, while the figure was 4.21 million tons in the same time span of the previous year.

With the growth of its steel production by more than 21 percent in the first two months of this year, Iran has been recognized as the ninth largest steel producer in this period, the report added.

Also, among the 10 largest steel producers, Iran had the highest production growth in the two months of 2023. In fact, out of these 10 countries, seven countries have faced a drop in production, and three countries, Iran, China, and India, have seen an increase in their production in this period, the international association announced.

The World Steel Association had announced in late February that Iran was ranked ninth among the world’s top steel-producing countries, rising one place in the list of the world’s top steel-makers.

As reported by the Iranian Mines and Mining Industries Development and Renovation Organization (IMIDRO), based on the WSA data the Islamic Republic produced 2.7 million tons of steel in the first month of 2023.

The figure shows a 27.7 percent hike compared to the corresponding month of the preceding year.

As reported, the world’s top steel-producing countries produced 145.3 million tons of crude steel in January to register a 3.3-percent decline, year-on-year.

During the mentioned month, China produced 79.5 million tons, becoming the top steelmaking country in the world.

India produced 10.5 million, ranking second, followed by Japan with the production of 7.2 million tons of crude steel.

The Iranian Steel industry has been constantly developing over the past years against all the pressures and obstacles created by outside forces like the U.S. sanctions and the coronavirus outbreak that has severely affected the performance of the world’s top producers.

In early February, the WSA reported that Iran’s crude steel production increased by eight percent in 2022 when the production by the world’s top 64 steelmakers declined by 4.2 percent.

Iran was ranked first among the world’s top steel producers in terms of production growth in the previous year.

Based on the WSA data, Iran produced 30.6 million tons of crude steel in the mentioned year.

Meanwhile, WSA stated that crude steel production by the world’s top 64 producers fell 4.2 percent to stand at 1.787 billion in 2022.

Production by Europe’s major steel producers also declined significantly last year so that Germany’s production declined by 8.4 percent, Italy experienced negative growth of 11.6 percent, France’s output declined by 13.1 percent, Spain registered a negative 19.2 percent growth and the UK a 15.6 percent decline in steel production.

According to the World Steel Association, Iran was the world’s 10th top steel producer over the past two years, after countries like China, India, Japan, and Russia.

The country is expected to climb to seventh place among the world’s top steel producers by the Iranian calendar year 1404 (March 2025).

MA