According to Iran's International Stone Exhibition, Iran is a country with rich mineral resources and hidden mineral reserves, with sixty-eight species identified so far, with lead, zinc and copper being the most prominent. According to preliminary estimates, Iran's mineral reserves are estimated at $ 700 billion, with new discoveries of up to $ 1.4 billion.

The Islamic Republic of Iran, along with Afghanistan and North Korea, are the world's three most important mining countries, with about seven percent of the world's mineral reserves in Iran. According to experts, the share of mining in GDP can increase up to fifty percent, and according to available statistics, it now accounts for ninety-seven percent of the country's mines in the private sector and three percent in the public sector.

Markazi province due to being located in two important geological regions of the country, including the metamorphic zones of Sanandaj Sirjan and Central Iran, has significant mineral capacities that provide investment in this sector providing the comprehensive development of the province and the country.

The province has valuable mining capacities that have faced many challenges in recent years. Central Province is home to a variety of minerals including metamorphic, igneous and sedimentary minerals such as non-metallic minerals, metallic, building materials and decorative rocks.

The province is one of the country's richest provinces with five hundred and sixty-two mines and more than 24 million tonnes of ore per year, and so far, it has identified fifty-seven types of minerals in the country, forty-two of which Thirty-four types of minerals are also exploited.

Travertine, sodium sulfate, lead, zinc, iron ore, gypsum, pozzolan, kaolin, carcass stone, iron, lime, gold and industrial soils are the province's most important rich mineral resources. More than thirty-five types of minerals have been identified in the Central Province and available for extraction of tungsten, tin and molybdenum, gold, copper, andalusite, black marble, granite, precious and ornamental minerals including turquoise, chrysocoula, jasir, azurite and Malachite, agate, quartz crystals, arpiman (arsenic sulfur), bentonite and calcite are present in the area.

Some of the mines used in the mines in Central Province are used in gypsum, lime, white cement, paint, shell, tile, rubber and glass units. Markazi province has sixteen units of micronized and supermicronized mineral powders and has the leading position in the country, while there are four metallic processing units - lead and zinc flotation and aluminum processing in Central Province.

Experts and mining experts believe that banks are not aware of the return and return on mining, the use of collateralized loans, the need to develop road infrastructure and workshop facilities in the area, the use of insurance funds. And banking facilities to expand and equip workshops are ways that, while paving the way for the sector to expand, reduce crude sales and lower the cost of mineral products to enter the exported processed stone market.

They believe: Given the high production and processing capacities of various minerals in the Central Province, especially specialty products such as neighborhood stone, establishing an industrial town in this area is one of the requirements that authorities must plan and invest in. For example in this private industrial town of stone, stone mills, sculpture, traditional and modern pillar making machines, industrial automation design, supply of stone material and repair work of stone machinery to be set up in one way. Exports will also be facilitated.

Deputy Minister of Mines Affairs Organization of Mines, Trade and Markazi province said: 4 thousand and one hundred and fifty-one people are employed in mines in the central province that if more attention to the completion of the exploration and extraction cycle can create more employment in this sector. Kurdish.

"More than twenty-five thousand eight hundred billion rials have been invested in the mines of the central province, which amounted to four hundred and seventy-five billion rials this year," Mohsen Besarde added.

He said the nominal capacity of the mines in the central province is twenty-five thousand four hundred and fourteen tons and said that the amount of extraction in the first six months of this year was three thousand six hundred twenty-three tons.

Deputy Minister of Mines Affairs of Central Organization of Mines and Commerce of Central Province stated: One hundred seventy four billion riyals of government mines were collected in the first half of this year and in the first six months of this year three million five hundred and sixty thousand tons of minerals One hundred ninety-five mining units have been extracted from the province.

Thirty-five types of minerals are produced in Markazi province, most notably copper, lead, zinc, gold, feldspar, iron ore, lime, sodium sulfate, carcass and travertine.

He added: Twenty-three new mineral exploration licenses were issued in the province in the first half of this year.

"Twelve new mining licenses have been issued in the Central Province this year, with a nominal capacity of one hundred and ninety-five thousand tons," the deputy director of the Mines of Industry, Mining and Trade Organization of the Central Province said.

He added: Mining investment is estimated at forty-seven billion riyals this year and the activity in this sector has created more than fifty job opportunities in the province.

"Mines are at the core of business and income generation and the advancement of sustainable development, which should have a good share in the production and growth of GDP," Bessardeh said.

He emphasized the value added tax and worn out machinery and fleet exploitation of mines as the most important problems in this sector and said: Mines are a significant part of sustainable development in every society which can be productive while paying special attention to this sector. It took a major step towards raising GDP.

The Central Provincial Mining Officer said: Mining machinery burnout is the first and foremost problem of activists in the sector which slows down the process.

Aziz Mirzaian added: "Extraction speed reduces all costs, such as labor and services, but slows down the extraction machinery and therefore the cost of products has gone up and the market has lost competitors." This is the arena.

He said: Mining machines have not been upgraded in the mines of Markazi province since 1991 and in recent years the price of spare parts has increased and reduced the possibility of upgrading the machines.

The Central Provincial Minerals Officer said: Although most water users are exempt from all types of taxes, agricultural activists have been exempt from taxation since 2010, with tax pressures so severe that many have abandoned their jobs. .

Mirzaiian said: "The policy makers of the Ministry of Industry, Mining and Commerce are in favor of regulating the mining sector, but when it comes to the body of expertise, it is met by the tastes of different people and these practices are at the expense of miners. he does.

"Mines are one of the least costly ways of sustainable development, job creation, boosting GDP and boosting the country's economy and people around the country, so officials need to think about supporting the sector's activists and applications," he said.

The head of the Mining Engineering Organization of the Central Province also said: With 100 travertine ores, the province supplies more than seventy percent of the country's travertine ore.

Iraj Yousefi added: The stone mines of Markazi province especially of Mahalat city as travertine pole are world famous and apart from locales only in a limited area in Yazd city and another area in East Azarbaijan.

He added: The taste and taste of travertine activists in cutting this type of stone has caused mass builders in different parts of the country to use this type of stone that this has led to the prosperity of stone quarries in the neighborhood.

The head of the Mining Engineering Organization of the Central Province said that most of the travertine is mined in the areas of Atashkouh, Abgabad, Abbas Abad and Dara Bukhari.

He said the lack of the consumer market is one of the major problems facing miners in the central province, saying that exports of stone and other minerals to various parts of the world have been halted, and the domestic market has some capacity to maintain the country's mines and the central province, thus saving the lives of mines and interest. Taking advantage of all the province's mining capacities and creating job opportunities in this sector, the mining market must be provided.

One mining activist in Shazand said: "Extraction tax is one of the problems of activists in this area because mining products are not sold in cash but the law requires the tax from the miner."

Abbas Rostami said mining was another problem in the sector and said that while mineral extraction could be a viable economy and sustainable employment in the central province, machinery burnout has led to the sale of minerals as a raw material. Reach.

The head of the board of directors of the Iranian Stone Exhibition said that the shortage and the increase in the price of the spare parts of the mining machinery have made it difficult for the activists of this sector that the authorities should take a look at this important issue.

Hossein Pourhassani added: The diesel pump was sold for seventy million riyals in the past years, but in recent days the price of the product has reached four hundred and fifty million riyals, which increases the cost of extraction.

He added: Last year the General Tax Office announced that if taxpayers submit their return on delivery only 3% of the total tax will be received and the rest will be paid, but after the miners submit their declaration Completed and paid three percent, the department did not provide the special purifier, and another five percent received tax from the miners.

He said that low exports of stone from Iran, especially the central province and Mahallat city, have caused our competitors in the regional countries such as Turkey to replace the Iranian stone and import their low quality stones to the world market.

He said: "Only with the export boom can local stone mines be revived because the domestic market does not have enough capacity to meet the needs of all stone mines."

The director of one of the mines in Arak also said that the sale of minerals is not always cash, so the miners in many cases are not able to pay high interest bank installments and the banks do not have much help from this group. The community does not.

Ali Shafahi added: Depreciation of mining equipment and equipment in the country, and especially the province, is another problem for miners, which is why many miners cannot even get half of their legal licenses.

He pointed out that access to mines is another problem and said that lack of proper access to mines has caused many of these units to be closed down.

Managing director of the Carcass Stone Mining Company, Paul Doab Shazand, also declared the discrepancy in the price of the mineral products at market price as the most important problem for the miners in the province and the country.

Mohammad Reza Davari added that because of the over-regular mining activity in the central province, the price of minerals has dropped dramatically as some competitors have to sell their mineral products at low prices.

Mining experts believe: Given the abundant reserves and high potentials of minerals in the central province, investing in this sector will reduce the reliance on oil exports in addition to creating and exporting oil and leading the country to a resilient economy. The emphasis of the supreme leader of the Islamic Revolution has led to the realization of the resistance economy of the supreme leader. In the country's twenty-year vision document, the role of mining in national GDP should be increased threefold, which will require extensive and targeted activity in the development of mineral exploration, establishment of the infrastructure required for mining, commissioning. New mines are a change in technology to increase productivity in mines and create mineral-based processing units, and this will certainly not be possible without the effective planning and presence of specialists and graduates. So far, about 500 mines have been issued in the central province, of which 150 are mined.

* IRNA