The hearing ear is not for hearing the facts
Secretary of the Iranian Stone Industry Policy Council: There is no hearing to hear the facts of the country's stone industry.
According to Iran's International Stone Exhibition, Ahmad Sharifi at the inauguration ceremony of the 11th International Stone Exhibition in Mahalat city, pointing out that the stone industry chain starts from the mine, adding: Two thousand twenty-seven million ton industrial units in the stone field It operates in a country with a global value of at least $ 3 billion.
He said that in the technology sector there is a production of one hundred and eighty million square meters of product worth 20 dollars per meter in the country, which amounts to more than three billion dollars. The existing ones are actually $ 7 billion, but alas, despite the twenty-seven million tonnes of active synthetic capacity in the area, only 10 million tonnes are produced.
The secretary of Iran's Stone Industry Policy Council stated: The statistics of the Ministry of Industry are different from the real statistics, the capacity of the license in 2012, 2013 was about one hundred and forty million square meters, while today the level of exploitation has reached 60 million square meters. That means 60 million tonnes of ore in the country.
He added: "Currently there are six million tonnes of exports, including one million tonnes of export blocks in the 7 million tonnes set, while the ministry is providing twelve million tonnes."
He asked why people were given the wrong statistics. He said that with the capacity of twenty-seven million tons of industries in the country seven to eight million tons of exports are exported and from one hundred and eighty million meters of processing to sixty million cubic meters.
Sharifi added: There are six thousand processing units in the country, of which 500 are potentially producing and exporting capacity, but only 100 to 150 are active and pursue export work and the rest should not be exported. These units can be complicated.
Why are these industries shut down despite having a standard Italian production line? Why the Ministry of Industry does not pay attention to national capital and where is the blind job, he said: the slogan cannot be run the country, the facts should be told to the people and be realistic. Why should the Iranian stone be sold to Iraqi dealers at a price of 30 to forty thousand tomans? Why should the basic price of a stone be considered five dollars, while the actual price is ten to fifteen dollars, and a mineral unit in Isfahan will sell its stone at an Iraqi dealer for 30 thousand dollars.
Asked why the investment in the ornamental stone industry is estimated at 700 million tomans, Sharifi added: "Today, buying a loader costs two billion tomans and requires at least four billion tomans of capital to equip a mine today in the industrial sector. Standard block stone production is only 30% while standard block production in Turkey is 60%.
He said that today the country's stone industry is facing difficulties in engineering design, supply of suitable machinery, management and training and these are the facts of the country's stone industry that unfortunately have no hearing in the ministry, said the meeting of the country's stone industry policy council that I I have been its secretary for over a year and have repeatedly requested a meeting from the Deputy Minister of Industry, but this was not provided and even with me, there is no hope of supporting the ministry.
Sharifi, referring to the closure of a thousand mining units out of the two thousand units in the country due to market problems, imposing government rights on them and engaging in cumulative losses, said: Last year, it was approved by the State Stone Industry Policy Council that state rights are based on mining rates. It should be calculated that this was not met with the approval of the Ministry of Industry and the Deputy Minister. In fact, the industry is not going to be crushed under the production gears, even demanding export duties from the stone mines.
Referring to the two billion dollar prospectus on exports, he said: "The document contains dozens of types of mining protection but has not yet been implemented." It has to be done in the field of rock processing and export because the missing link in the value chain is exports.
* ISNA
