Azerbaijan, Baku, Feb.11/ Trend, F. Milad
Iran plans to increase its cement output up to 85 million tons by the end of the next Iranian Calendar year (March 19, 2014), an official from Iran's Cement Producers Association said on Monday.
Iran's cement output will reach 76 million tons by the end of current Iranian calendar year (March 19), the IRIB News Agency quoted Abdolreza Sheykhan as saying.
Tehran has exported 11 million tons of cement in the first ten months of the current year and plans to increase the figure up to 12 million tons by the end of this year, he added.
Sheykhan also expressed hope that Iran's cement exports reach 18-20 million tons in the next calendar ear.
Industry, Mine and Trade Minister Mehdi Ghazanfari said in August, 2012 that the country's cement production capacity will reach 110 million tons by 2015.
Iran has produced 69,457,000 tons of cement in a 12-month period that ended February 10. The amount shows 6.7 percent increase compared to the same time span previous year, the Mehr News Agency reported.
Deputy Iranian Industry, Mine, and Trade Minister, Vajiollah Jafari, said last month that by reaching the annual output capacity of 115 million tons, Iran will become world's third largest cement producer in the coming years.
Iran, with total production of 66 million tons ranked as the world's fourth largest cement producer in 2011.
The world's total cement production in 2011 stood at 3.6 billion tons.