TEHRAN – Iran’s acting minister of industry, mining, and trade said that inaugurating 200 major projects by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20, 2021) is going to create 41,000 new direct jobs across the country, Mehr news agency reported.

Outlining the ministry’s major programs for the realization of the motto for the current Iranian year which is “Surge in Production”, Hossein Modarres Khiabani said that one of the major plans of the ministry is completing semi-finished projects under the framework of a program called “Persistent Production-Effective Employment-Sustainable Exports”.

“In this program, large industrial and mining units are inaugurated and go operational every week; In this regard, it is planned for 200 leading industrial projects with a total investment of 1.7 quadrillion rials (about $40.4 billion) to be inaugurated by the end of the year which will create direct employment for more than 41,000 people”, the official noted.

He pointed to the ongoing work in 4,000 industrial, mining, and trade projects with over 80 percent of physical progress and said that these projects will be completed gradually by the end of the current government.

According to the ministry’s office of public relations, Khiabani underlined four major axes for the ministry’s programs this year, which include moving toward self-sufficiency, completing semi-finished projects, developing exports, and managing imports, and finally controlling and managing the domestic market.

As for self-sufficiency, the acting minister stated that one of the major goals of the Industry Ministry in the current Iranian calendar year is going to be reducing dependence on foreign sources and the U.S. dollar for supplying the country’s needs.

Regarding the third axis which is the development of exports while controlling and management of imports, the official said, “We have limited the import items to basic goods, raw materials, machines and equipment required by factories to prevent the imports of unnecessary goods which can be made domestically.”

He also noted that the ministry is implementing a program to indigenize the knowledge for manufacturing various equipment and industrial parts that will save the country over $3.2 billion annually.

“We have managed to save $300 million this way in the first four months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20-July 21),” he added.

The fourth axis of the Industry Ministry's priority plans for the current year is to control and regulate the market, according to Modarres Khiabani.

“Necessary measures have also been taken to ensure the proper and adequate supply of the basic goods required by people,” he said.

EF/MA