TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian mining sector had a significant hike in investment for new projects despite American sanctions that have been imposed on sales of expensive metals among other lucrative areas, said a spokesperson with IMIDRO.
Spokesman for IMIDRO, Iran’s largest metals holding, Mohammad Sepehr said that investment in new mining projects, including opening mines or launching processing industries, had amounted to $3.2 billion over the past Iranian year ending March 19.
Sepehr said the figure indicated some 60% increase compared to the previous year when total investment in the sector topped $2 billion.
He added that a boom in investment had occurred despite the illegal US sanctions imposed as well as the coronavirus outbreak that began in Iran in late February.
The Spokesman said that other of mining projects worth $2.2 billion would become operational in the current Iranian year ending March 2021.
According to IMIDRO mine discovery in Iran grew by 210% over the past year to reach 310,000 square kilometers.
In relevant remarks in September 2019, the Iranian Mines and Mining Industries Development and Renovation (IMIDRO) announced that the country is going to increase investment in the mining sector, recounting that 150 mines will be re-activated in a bid to boost Tehran’s economic growth in the face of the US unilateral sanctions.
An IMIDRO official, Somayyeh Kholousi, said that plans were in place to revive operations in some 150 closed mines across Iran in the upcoming months, adding that the projects would lead to permanent employment for around 3,000 workers.
Iran is planning to employ an extra 10,000 people in the mining industry in projects worth nearly $3.9b until the end of the current Persian calendar year in March, she added.
Kholousi said the South Aluminum Project, planned to be opened in November in Fars province, would seek to compensate for the reduced exports of aluminum from Iran over the past years.
The official noted that the massive expansion of the mining sector in Iran would lead to an increase in the production of steel of up to 39 million tons a year while it would also increase aluminum production by three times.
Kholousi added that a main goal of the expansion project is to increase the output for key products like copper cathode and graphite electrodes. She said Iran would import 50 percent less of graphite electrodes, a product widely used in the steel industry, next year.
She said the share of the net private investment in Iran’s mining industry had increased over the past 18 months to reach nearly $140 million.
Iran, a country highly rich in minerals and metal reserves, has sought to use the potential to offset the impacts of a series of American sanctions imposed on its oil industry.
Kholousi said the total investment expected to be injected to the mining sector in Iran until March 2022, when a current national development plan concludes, would top $16 billion.
Earlier, the IMIDRO had announced that the country exported 633,050 tons of steel in the last local calendar month (between July 23 and August 22) which shows a 37% jump in comparison with figures from corresponding period in the last year.
Late in August 2019, the Iranian Ministry of Industry, Mine and Trade said that the country produced some 7.2 million tons of steel products in the first 4 months of the local calendar year (March 21-July 21) indicating an 11.6% growth compared with the output of the same period the year before.
