TEHRAN - Three major Iranian carmakers, namely Iran Khodro Company (IKCO), SAIPA Group, and Pars Khodro, manufactured 566,844 vehicles during the first eight months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20 -November 20), the data released by Codal website showed.

According to the data, during the mentioned period IKCO manufactured 291,234 vehicles, of which 40,904 were produced in the eighth Iranian calendar month of Aban (October 22-November 20).

SAIPA and Pars Khodro also manufactured 209,534 and 66,076 vehicles in the mentioned period, respectively.

Meanwhile, SAIPA managed to export 321,000 Completely Built Up (CBU) vehicles in the said eight months.

Iranian carmakers had exported about 1,300 vehicles weighing 1,573 tons to nine countries, including Hong Kong, Taiwan, Syria, UAE, Spain, China, Iraq, and Turkey during the previous Iranian calendar year.

Based on the data released by the Industry, Mining, and Trade Ministry, 468,699 vehicles were manufactured in Iran during the first half of the current year (March 20-September 21), which has been 23.4 percent higher than the figure for the same period of time in the past year.

During this period, 425,925 passenger cars were manufactured in the country, registering a growth of 21.9 percent compared to the first six months of the previous year. The production of trucks also reached 39,519 units in the said time span, which has increased by 40.4 percent compared to the last year’s same period.

Considering the mentioned data, while the growth in output has been realized in the first half, car manufacturing is also planned to rise in the second half.

Mohsen Salehinia, the new head of the Industrial Development and Renovation Organization of Iran (IDRO), has recently mentioned planning for increasing car manufacturing in the second half, and said, “We are investigating and finalizing the issues in this due”.

Deputy Industry, Mining and Trade Minister Saeed Zarandi had said earlier this year that 1.2 million vehicles were planned to be manufactured in the present year, which seems a realistic figure given the surge in production policies of this year.

EF/MA