TEHRAN – Iran’s export of steel products in the past Iranian calendar year (ended on March 19) rose 27 percent compared to its preceding year, IRNA reported.

As reported, the country’s major steel producers managed to export about 7.33 million tons of the products in the previous year.

According to the data released by the Industry, Mining and Trade Ministry, in the mentioned period over 20.226 million tons of steel ingots were produced by the country’s 10 major companies to register a five-percent rise year on year.

The mentioned companies also produced nearly 13.38 million tons of other steel products last year, six percent more than the preceding year.

The export of steel ingot during the last year’s 11-month period ended on February 19, increased by 42 percent to stand at 6.3 million tons.

Iranian major steel companies produced over 18.5 million tons of steel ingots during the 11 months, registering a four-percent growth from the figure for the same period in the previous year.

As Iranian Mines and Mining Industries Development and Renovation Organization (IMIDRO) has announced, Iran’s annual steel ingot production is planned to increase 3.2 million tons in the current Iranian calendar year, which began on March 20.

The country has defined 16 development projects in the steel sector to boost the output of steel products by 17.3 million tons in five years.

These projects are for constructing production units each with the capacity of 600,000 tons, while some other projects have been also defined to set up some units with under 500,000-ton capacity that together with the 600,000-ton capacity units will add 19.1 million tons to the country’s annual steel products output.

In its latest report, the World Steel Association (WSA) has announced that Iran’s crude steel production increased by 30 percent in 2019 while the average global growth in this sector stood at 3.5 percent.

Based on the WSA report, Iran produced 31.9 million tons of the mentioned commodity during 2019 compared to the last year’s nearly 24 million tons.

EF/MA