Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec.1
By Fatih Karimov - Trend:
Local and foreign investments in Iran's mining sector should be facilitated by the administration, IRNA quoted member of the Iranian house of mines Aziz Mirzaeian as saying on December 1.
The administration should avoid preparing short-term plans for the mining sector, he added.
In the last Iranian calendar year, which ended on March 20, 2013, 400 million tons of minerals were extracted. The figure is projected to reach 570 million tons by 2015, he said.
According to statistics, Iran has invested $23 billion during the past 50 years in its mineral industries, he noted.
On October 5, chairman of Iranian Mines and Mining Industries Development and Renovation Organization (IMIDRO) Mehdi Karbasian said that the value of incomplete mineral projects in Iran reaches $5.7 billion.
The projects are related to nearly 60 mines in the country, he said, adding that IMIDRO needs $28 billion to implement its development projects by the end of the fifth five-year national development plan (2015).
In July, Iranian Deputy Industry, Mines, and Trade Minister Seyyed Alireza Shoja'ei said some 4000 industrial and mineral projects are underway in Iran.
The projects are 70 per cent complete, the IRNA News Agency quoted Shoja'ei as saying.
The projects will come on stream at a cost of eight trillion rials which is around $652 million based on the official rate of USD and $222 million based on the free market's price, he said.
Iran holds three per cent of the world's mineral reserves which puts the country first in the Middle East and third in Asia.
Iran ranks among the 15 major mineral-rich countries of the world and exports its industrial and mineral products to 159 countries, including Iraq, China, the United Arab Emirates, India and Afghanistan.
The important mines of Iran include coal, metallic minerals, sand and gravel, chemical minerals and salt.
The country has the world's largest zinc and second largest copper deposits and ranks ninth for its iron reserves.