Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug. 11
By Fatih Karimov – Trend:
The value of Iran’s clothing market has reached $11.5 billion per year, Alireza Haeri, the former director of the Association of Iran Textile Industries, said.
Iran’s per capita cloth consumption stands at $147 per year, Haeri said, IRIB news agency reported Aug. 11.
Foreign companies share about $2.5-3 billion of Iran’s $11.5 billion worth clothing market, he added.
Almost 1,500 industrial units with 30,000 employees are active in clothing sector, with 340,000 tons of producing capacity, he said, adding the output currently reaches 300,000 tons of clothing items per year.
According to Iranian officials, only 10 percent of Iran’s clothing import is legal, while 90 percent of it is smuggled from abroad.
Earlier, Golnar Nasrollahi, the general manager of Textile & Garment Department at Iran's Ministry of Industry, said that Iran's textile industry has capacity to produce 300,000 tons of clothing products annually, while the demand is 400,000-450,000 tons, and 90 percent of that is supplied via smuggling.
She added that some $700 million worth of clothing was imported in Iran during 2014, of which only 10 percent was imported legally through customs and free trade zones.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Haeri said that Iran’s garment export stood at $70 million during the last fiscal year (ended March 20).
He added that the Islamic Republic has a very little share in global clothing market, which hits $1,500 billion per annum and is expected to surpass $2,000 billion by 2025.
Last April, Tehran Garment Union (TGU) signed a deal with the National Textiles and Fashion Association Sistema Moda Italia (SMI) to develop mutual cooperation of companies operating in the textile industry of the two countries.
The SMI Chairman Claudio Marenzi said that under the signed document the Italian firms will invest in Iran’s textile sector and will cooperate with Iranian counterparts to jointly manufacture clothing.