TEHRAN – Iran on Monday opened the 25th International Exhibition of Building and Construction Industry (Iran CONFAIR 2025), the country’s largest trade fair for the construction sector, with officials highlighting the industry’s export potential and central role in the economy.

The four-day event was inaugurated by Transport and Urban Development Minister Farzaneh Sadegh and Bahman Abdollahi, head of the Iran Chamber of Cooperatives, at Tehran’s permanent international fairground.

All exhibition space has been filled, covering 47,000 square meters, including 42,000 square meters outdoors for heavy machinery and equipment. For the first time, special halls were dedicated to start-ups and new firms.

Companies and visitors from Singapore, Italy, Germany, Turkey and China are attending this year’s exhibition, providing what organizers described as opportunities to expand trade and technical cooperation.

Abdollahi said the construction sector is a “driving force” in Iran’s economy due to its links with more than 130 other industries. He noted that Iran ranks as the world’s fourth-largest exporter of tiles and ceramics and has an annual export capacity of more than one million tons of steel structures, potentially generating $2.5 billion a year.

He added that Iran’s overall capacity for exporting technical and engineering services exceeds $40 billion annually, of which $15 billion relates to construction. However, he said actual exports in 2022 and 2023 were only around $2 billion in this field.

Despite sluggish growth in the housing sector in recent years, Abdollahi said Iran has both supply and demand potential to reach annual production of one million housing units.

Organizers said the exhibition, hosted by the Iran Chamber of Cooperatives, offers a platform to showcase domestic capabilities, strengthen non-oil exports and promote innovation in building technologies. They described it as one of the region’s largest and most specialized construction fairs.

EF/MA