TEHRAN- Iran’s industrial parks play a significant role in making the country independent through boosting production, which is a major strategy of Iran to combat the U.S. sanctions.

In fact, strengthening domestic production to achieve self-reliance is the most important program that Iran is following up in its industry sector in a bid to nullify the effects of the U.S. sanctions on its economy.

In this due, the current Iranian calendar year (began on March 20) has been named the year of “Surge in Production”, and all governmental bodies, as well as the private sector, are moving in line with the materialization of this motto.

Regarding its significant role in the realization of the mentioned goal, the Industry, Mining and Trade Ministry has already defined its main programs for supporting domestic production in the current year.

The ministry’s seven main axes of the surge in production are being pursued under 40 major programs.

In this regard, the development of industrial parks and supporting the units located in these areas is one of the major programs underway by the ministry.

This program has already borne fruit, as according to the latest data released by Industry, Mining and Trade Ministry, during the first eight months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20-November 20), 25,108 permits have been issued for establishing new industrial units in the country, which marked a 45.4-percent increase year on year.

The estimated investment making for these units is 3.12 quadrillion rials (about $74.5 billion), up 48.6 percent compared to the figure for the past year’s same time span.

The units are predicted to create jobs for 563,270 persons, indicating 41.2 percent growth year on year.

As previously announced by the ministry, the issuance of permits for setting up industrial units in the country increased 16 percent in the past Iranian calendar year (ended on March 19, 2020).

Also as the acting head of Iran Small Industries and Industrial Parks Organization (ISIPO) has announced, 991 idle industrial units have been revived in the country during the first eight months of the present year.

Asghar Mosaheb said that reviving the mentioned units has created jobs for 17,090 persons.

The official said there are over 46,000 small and medium-sized industrial units in Iran’s industrial parks and zones, of them about 9,200 units are inactive.

Supporting the industrial units is being pursued seriously, but there are some weaknesses in this due which should be addressed and resolved.

One of them is the lack of support to the private industrial parks, which was mentioned by the ISIPO’s acting head in a live TV program on Sunday night.

The problems related to land ownership and environmental issues were among the subjects addressed in the program.

As announced by Mosaheb, there are already 7,000 units in the private industrial parks of Iran.

And in general, the lack of necessary infrastructure, which has been constantly mentioned, is a major challenge that the industrial parks are facing throughout the country.