Government to activate "second-class" quarries
Managing Director of Iran International Stone Exhibition: The closure of the "second-class" mines on the one hand will disable the workers of these mines and on the other the factories that depend on these mines. Many stone mills in Iran cut "second" stone and cannot afford first class stone.
According to Iran Stone International Exhibition, Behnam Nikfar, Director of Iran International Stone Exhibition, in an exclusive interview with Iranian Stone News Agency stated: In many mines of Iran, despite the lack of modern equipment and working with multi-year machines, Extraction work is well done and almost synchronized with developed countries.
He added: "The number of mines in the country is very high but the number of mines can be counted. It is necessary to increase the number of powerful mines in Iran, we need mines that can easily meet the very high demands of the Copper Stone.
He said: Many of the existing mines in Iran are "second-class", which have faced numerous financial problems due to rising costs. The government should note that these mines do not have the power of "first class" mines and cannot pay state taxes and salaries like them.
He stressed that the government needed to reduce the tax and government rights to the mines as much as possible so that they would return to the production cycle. About ninety-five percent of Iran's "second-class" mines are closed because they cannot afford to pay for mining, taxes and government salaries, Nykfar said, and they need to be identified and urgent action taken.
The director of the International Stone Exhibition of Iran stated that the closure of the "second-class" mines would, on the one hand, make the miners inactive on the one hand, and on the other, the factories that depend on them. Many stone mills in Iran cut "second" stone and cannot afford first class stone.
He added: "The authorities should give the mines a second chance to get these mines a little financially empowered, and then take away their taxes, duties, and government salaries; there should be more government support."
He added: "The most important issue we have right now is unemployment; we used to provide our workers from the surrounding cities but now there is so much unemployment that we don't even have jobs for our fellow workers."
Another important issue is high bank profits, Nikfar said. On the one hand, officials argue that inflation is single-digit, and on the other, we see the benefits of banking facilities still double-digit; this is not consistent at all, indicating that the Iranian economy is still in trouble.
"We can talk about the boom in production when the benefits of single-digit banking facilities are affordable for the producer to get a loan," he said.
