Tehran, Iran, July 3
Trend:
Iran is to revive 50 small mines in current Iranian year (started March 21, 2019) while the country's stone imports had dropped, said the head of Iran Stone Association.
"Iran Stone Association seeks to revive 50 small mines in cooperation with Ministry of Industry, Mine and Trade, and this will be discussed," said Malek Rahmati, Trend reports citing ILNA.
"There is a need for exploration in this industry. Currently, there are 5.2 billion tons of stones reserves. Iran possesses 7 percent of world mines but it has not fully used the capacity," he noted. "Iran used to import 66,096 tons of stone per year in 2018, but the volume decreased to 22,000 tons per year. The mines in the country have the production capacity of 30 million tons, while they only produce 13 million tons."
"Iran has exported cut and uncut stones to 69 countries in last Iranian year (started March 21, 2018), major part of it was sent to neighbor countries including 269,000 tons of stones sold to Iraq and 110,000 tons exported to the Emirates," he added. "Iran exported stone block and semi processed stone to 44 countries , major part of the export 812,000 tons supplied to China. In total, Iran's exports in this category were valued at $161 million," he said.
"The mine industries can not be sanctioned, so we continue our exports. The world needs our mineral products and foreign companies would demand their supply by all means," he noted.