TEHRAN- Production of steel in Iran increased by 10.5 percent during the first quarter of the current Iranian calendar year (March 21-June 21), as compared to the same period of time in the past year, Iranian Steel Producers Association (ISPA) reported.

The ISPA’s report put the country’s three-month steel production at 9.478 million tons.

As recently announced by the World Steel Association (WSA), Iran is ranked eighth among the world’s top steel-producing countries in April, rising one place in the list of the world’s top steel-makers.

The latest report released by the WSA shows that Iran’s crude steel output has increased 5.9 percent in the mentioned month while the global average growth rate stood at – 2.4 percent.

Based on the WSA data, Iran produced 3.1 million tons of crude steel in the mentioned month.

Meanwhile, the Islamic Republic produced 9.7 million tons of steel in the first four months of 2023, registering a 0.1 percent growth compared to the same period in the previous year.

WSA report says that the world’s 64 steel producers managed to produce 161.4 million tons of the commodity in April, 2.4 percent less than the figure for the previous year’s same period.

The steelmakers produced 622.7 million tons of steel in the first four months of this year, which indicates a 13 percent drop compared to the same period last year.

According to the WSA report, China, India, Japan, the U.S., and Russia were the world’s top steel producers respectively.

Iran has maintained its place as the world’s 10th biggest steel producer during the mentioned four months, according to the WSA data.

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.

Back in 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.

MA