Tehran, Iran, July 5
By Mehdi Sepahvand - Trend:
Iran has reduced its sale of raw minerals by 23 percent, Head of Iran's Trade Development Organization Valiollah Afkhami said.
According to Afkhami, the reduction was rendered in the last Iranian fiscal year (which ended March 20) and relates to the value of the exports.
Meanwhile, the weight of the exported raw minerals was cut by 25 percent during the same period.
Iron counts for the majority of Iran's raw minerals export. Iron export reduced by 28 percent in value and 29 percent in weight last Iranian year.
Afkhami said the depreciation of iron in the international market was one of the reasons Iran cut its export.
During the mentioned period, iron plunged in price from $110 to below $60 per unit.
Iron bar- slabs, billets and blooms - beam and steel rods and sheet, as well as aluminum bars, copper cathode and wire were also among the raw minerals that saw export reduction in the mentioned period.
The said materials' export for the last Iranian calendar year hit $2.5 billion and weighed 20.1 million metric tons.
The numbers were $2.5 billion and 27.1 million metric tons for the preceding year. This means that last year Iran's export of these materials lowered by 3.4 percent in value and 26 percent in weight, according to the official.
A senior expert at Iran's Center for Strategic Research within Expediency Discernment Council of the System, Jamshid Pajouyan told Trend Dec. 10 that exporting raw materials for energy-rich Iran has been the economy's ailment, while the country exports a huge amount of raw mineral exports, such as raw aluminum, iron ore, etc as well.
According to official statistics, there are 38 billion metric tons of proven mineral reserves, alongside 52 billion metric tons of potential mineral reserves in Iran, of which 5,200 mines are active. However, the share of mining in Iran's GDP is only about 3 percent.
Iran is ranked 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. Iran has the world's largest zinc and second largest copper deposits and ranks ninth for its iron reserves.