TEHRAN – Members of the Iran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture (ICCIMA) Industries Committee have stressed the need for allocating a portion of the national budget for the next Iranian calendar year (starts on March 21) for maintaining the infrastructure in industrial parks across the country.

As reported by the ICCIMA portal, in their latest meeting on Sunday, the ICCIMA Industries Committee members examined the issues related to the country’s industrial parks which were mainly concerned with the reconstruction, repair, and maintenance of the infrastructure in these parks.

The attendees of the meeting emphasized that in order to resolve the infrastructure-related issues in the country’s industrial parks a separate credit line must be defined in the national budget bill in this regard.

Speaking in this meeting, Industries Committee Head Alireza Samadi-Kolahi mentioned the old regulations for financing industrial parks, saying: “We tried hard to revive the old law that allowed the government to allocate a share of municipal value-added tax to industrial parks. But this law is no longer approved. But perhaps part of the provincial development budget can be allocated for this purpose.”

The government used to allocate a portion of the Municipalities’ value-added tax to industrial parks, however, the law has been changed and this funding is no longer provided.

Further in the meeting, the attendees pointed to the government’s plans for allocating 660 trillion rials (about $2.2 billion) for a new fund called Iran Progress and Justice Fund, which is aimed to finance developing infrastructure in various provinces and noted that a portion of the mentioned funding can be allocated for maintaining the infrastructure in industrial parks.

According to the ICCIMA committee members, the infrastructures in industrial parks including sewage, water, treatment plants, access roads, etc., are worn out and have practically lost their efficiency, while there is no budget to reconstruct or maintain these infrastructures.

EF/MA