Tehran, Iran, Jan. 8
By Kamyar Eghbal – Trend:
A senior official with the syndicate of Iran's pipe and profile producers has urged the government to lessen tariffs on imports of steel plates.
“Hot-rolled steel plates, nowadays, stand out as the most important raw material of the steel producers in the country, of which sheets with a thickness of 2 millimeter (mm) are more popular,” Amir Hossein Kaveh, secretary of syndicate for Iranian pipe and profile producers, told Trend.
Speaking about the high import tariffs on steel plates, Kaveh added that the hot rolled-plates with a thickness up to 2 mm account for over half of the steel plates required by the syndicate of Iran's pipes and profiles producers.
Calling on the officials of the county to lessen the import tariffs on steel sheets with a thickness up to 2 mm, he described the current tariffs as “very high”.
The government has set the tariffs for importing the rolled plates with a thickness up to 3 mm at 10 percent of the value of the products.
Elaborating on the issue, Kaveh added that the country nowadays faces a lack of domestic production of these types of steel sheets.
“On the other hand, we witness an inappropriate supply of steel plates on Iran Mercantile Exchange (IME), so that less than half of the demand is offered in each supply on the IME, leading the manufacturers to become the importers of the product,” Kaveh, who is also the vice president of Sadid Industrial Holding, added.
Urging the steel producers to refrain from selling crude materials, he said the rise in the import tariffs on the steel sheet inflicts damage to the domestic producers.
Converting steel plates into steel products, pipes and profiles inside the country would add value to the raw products, he added.