Tehran, Iran, July 10
By A. Shirazi - Trend:
An official with the Iranian Ceramic Products Syndicate (IRCPS) warned that high import duties on raw materials are affecting the country’s tile industry.
“Iran’s tile industry has the capacity to produce 500 million square meters of ceramic tiles, but high import duties on raw materials are among major problems ahead of this industry,” Mohammad Roshanfekr said on Tuesday on the sidelines of the 25th International Conference on Tile, Ceramics, and Sanitary Ware in Tehran, IRNA news agency reported on July 10.
Calling on the government to increase its support for the industry, he said Tehran’s policies on the foreign exchange market have made it very difficult for manufacturers to import raw materials.
In an effort to halt the slide, Iranian authorities announced in April they were unifying the dollar’s official and black market exchange rates at a single level of 42,000, and banning any trade at other rates under the threat of arrest.
Referring to new US sanctions against Iran, Roshanfekr said we should turn the threats into opportunity, boost cooperation, and support domestic production in the face of the sanctions.
US President Donald Trump announced on May 8 that Washington was walking away from the nuclear agreement, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which was reached in 2015 between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council - the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China - plus Germany.
Trump also said he would reinstate US nuclear sanctions on Iran and impose "the highest level" of economic bans on the Islamic Republic.