TEHRAN – Representatives of the Tehran private sector gathered on Friday to review the Industry Ministry’s comprehensive program for supporting the country’s industry, mining and trade sectors over the next four years, the portal of Tehran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines, and Agriculture (TCCIMA) reported.

The program was reviewed in a joint meeting of TCCIMA’s Trade Facilitation and Export Development as well as Industry and Mining specialized committees.

The meeting was attended by Deputy Industry, Mining, and Trade Minister Mehdi Niazi as well as the heads and representatives of some export and industrial organizations.

Speaking at the gathering, Niazi noted that in his ministry’s comprehensive plan, quantitative planning has been done for all sectors, saying: “Based on the analysis of trends and goals in the next four years, we will achieve the infrastructure required for the proper implementation of this program.”

According to this strategic program, by the Iranian calendar year 1404 (2025) a growth rate of seven percent has been targeted for the industrial sector, a 10.5 percent growth is seen for the mining sector and a growth rate of 1.5 percent is projected for the commercial sector.

The comprehensive program has also targeted creating two million jobs in the next four years, the official said.

Emphasizing that this strategic plan envisages a serious leap for the mining sector, he added: "Reducing the economic complexity from 70 to 40 is one of the axes that are the basis for the implementation and realization of this strategic plan."

Increasing economic resilience, increasing investment attraction, especially domestic investment, market management and supply of basic goods, monitoring of smuggled goods, prioritizing the production and export of knowledge-based products, improving productivity in industry, mining, and trade, and developing the use of new financing methods were also mentioned by Niazi as other priorities of the Industry Ministry’s program for the next four years.

Back in September, Deputy Industry, Mining, and Trade Minister Mehdi Sadeqi Niaraki had said his ministry defined 36 new programs for improving the productivity of the country’s major strategic industries in the current Iranian calendar year (ends in March 2022).

Niaraki said the Industry Ministry’s programs for supporting the productive sector focus on three major axes including the facilitation of supplying raw materials required by industries including equipment, machinery, components, and parts as well as planning to provide the working capital needed by the production units.

EF/MA