The world's fourth weakest stone exporter
Secretary of Iranian Stone Association: The Islamic Republic of Iran is the fourth largest manufacturer of decorative stone and facade of building but with poor export share, we have very poor performance in this field.
According to the International Stone Exhibition of Iran, Ahmad Sharifi, secretary of the Association of Stone, said: "Our country has one thousand hundreds of ore mines nationwide with a capacity of 25 million tons.
He added: "Currently, there are about thirteen to fourteen million tonnes of stone production in the country annually, and in fact the approved capacity of the country's stone production is less than 50%.
He cited the average export value of the country as two hundred to four hundred million dollars and said that the minimum share of this sector should be three billion dollars annually.
The current secretary of the country's stone production capacity is one hundred and eighty million square meters annually, while currently producing ninety million square meters of crushed stone, much of which is consumed domestically.
He pointed out that the economic downturn in the country has led to the production of active units, now depots in warehouses and factories facing serious problems. According to published statistics, there are 6,600 to 6,500 stone-carving units in the country, most of which have been in operation for more than three decades.
Sharifi said: Reports show that one of our neighbors earns more than $ 2 billion a year from exported raw and processed stone, while Iran exports about $ 200 million a year.
"The reality is that today authorities have to open the way for exporting raw materials to boost exports, and that will increase the capacity of the stone mines," he said.
Sharifi said the investment was inadequate for supplying high-end ornamental machinery to the miners, and said the government was expected to implement the planning agreement when it came to implementing the new stone processing equipment.
He said: Today, stone exporters in Turkey enjoy a variety of government support, providing exhibition costs as well as 50% of the cost of export warehouses in the target countries by the government as part of export support that is not provided in Iran.
According to Sharifi, the government does not provide any support to the stone exporter to get out of this crisis because there is no precise planning for the export of ornamental stone in our country.
He said that the National Export Day is scheduled to be held on the 21st of October this year at the Summit and the presence of senior officials is expected, but the point of the National Summit is to think about exporting in consultation with relevant organizations.
The secretary of the Iranian Stone Association added: "Using the experiences of other countries active in the field of stone export could open a new horizon for the growth of this sector."
He expressed hope: Creating joint ventures with friendly and neighbor countries is one of the strategies for successful presence in export target markets and so far no appropriate action has been taken in this direction. Sharifi called attendance at major world rock exhibitions, including Italy's Verona, but we also had a weak performance, with Iran's recent exhibit accounting for 1.5 percent of the total exhibition space. .
About 400 million tonnes of minerals are extracted annually from the country's 5,000 active mines and there are ten mines of iron ore, copper, lead and zinc worldwide. The Islamic Republic of Iran ranks 15th and 10th in the world in terms of identified reserves and mineral diversity, respectively.
