Baku, Azerbaijan, May 31
By Fatih Karimov - Trend:
Iran's car part industry is suffering serious economic crisis due to smuggling of car parts into the country and unsettled debts of carmakers, Arash Mohebbinejad, secretary of the Iranian car part makers union, said.
The car part manufacturing units in the country are working only at 50 percent of the output capacity, Mohebbinejad said, Tasnim news agency reported May 31.
Earlier, Mohebbinejad said that annually $1.2 billion worth of car parts are imported into the country through legal and illegal channels.
Every year some $700 million worth of auto parts are imported into Iran legally, while $400-$500 million worth of parts are smuggled into the country, he added.
Mohebbinejad further said the deferred debts of the carmakers to auto part makers has also put a heavy pressure on the car part industry.
The debts were about 50 trillion rials in total, of that about 26 trillion rials were settled in recent weeks (30,460 rials making one US dollar based on the official rate), he said.
About 17 trillion rials of the carmakers' debts remain unsettled, he said, expressing hope that it would be cleared in the next two weeks.