50% of the mines are closed
The country, especially the Kashan region, is rich in sources of decorative stones, but the wrong policies of the government have knocked down these mines.
According to the International Iranian Stone Exhibition, God-given blessings throughout the country have caused Iran to have a say in various fields, and on the other hand, it causes employment, entrepreneurship and economic growth and dynamism, and fortunately the city of Kashan is one of these divine blessings. It is beneficial.
This city has a good potential in the field of decorative stones, but unfortunately the mechanism is not such that the mine of this part is used properly and it is still hidden like a treasure hidden in the heart of the mountain, while it is possible to earn a lot of income from this part. On the other hand, he organized employment in Kashan.
Bahram Shakoori, stating that decorative stones are among the minerals and reserves of the country, said: "Wall Street has estimated the value of the country's resources at $ 27.3 trillion and we are ranked fifth in the world and have more than three billion tons of definite reserves and five There are billions of tons of definite and probable reserves that have not yet been discovered.
He said that Isfahan province is also a province with high potential in decorative stones, he added: Provinces such as Markazi province has a high capacity in this field and there are most stone processing factories in Isfahan province and Kashan city also has this potential, but Unfortunately, about 50% of the mines related to decorative stones have been closed and they have many problems, one of the most important of which is the financial issue, both in the field of working capital and the purchase of equipment, and they also have problems in the infrastructure sector.
The head of the Iran Chamber of Mines and Mining Industries Commission, while criticizing the implementation of unprofessional tolls on decorative stone mines, said: A single version was complicated for all mines and the field of decorative stones was affected, and this issue was adopted as a ban on selling raw materials. We hope that Minister Samat solved this problem with his experience.
"Despite these reserves, we have achieved a production of 9 million tons," he said. "The maximum annual production is not more than 15 million tons, which means that our stone reserves are responsible for the next 400 years, and most of these production stones up to about 93% is consumed domestically and only 7% is exported unprocessed.
"Turkey, which has almost the same reserves as Iran, exports more than 75 percent of its crude stone production, and the income from this production and export," Shakouri said, noting that the exchange rate was not more than $ 350 million a year. It is more than five billion dollars because the total stone tourism in the world is 24 billion dollars and has been able to occupy 20% of this market.
He stressed that the reason for this sale of raw materials is to change people's tastes: many substitute goods are ready for stone and if this valuable product is not used, they will not find any special value in the future, and therefore these countries use decorative stones with their own power. Processing and export are exported in raw form, so it is not possible to wrap a single version for all minerals.
The head of the Iran Chamber of Mines and Mineral Industries Commission, while emphasizing the role of knowledge-based companies in mineral stones, especially decorative stones, added: "Today, as much as we can line up waste by using new knowledge and knowledge-based sciences, we could increase productivity and On this basis, some designers design non-marketable stones, which has created a very good market for them.
Criticizing the non-allocation of Corona facilities to the field of mineral and decorative stone industries, he said: "Since ordinary people have not even used the benefits and facilities of Corona, it is not expected that this area has also used the facilities; Our government has become a big government and the current expenses of the country have become very high, and we must reduce the government and strengthen the private sector.
We do not have a correct definition of selling raw materials
Kamran Vakil, referring to the value chain of the mineral ores, said: In decorative stones, as soon as the stone is extracted from the heart of the mine, it is a kind of processing, because no part is more risky than the first stage, and therefore the stone extracted from the mine It can be a kind of processing and after this stage there are still ten more stages.
He said that the extraction of decorative stone is a kind of processing and the term raw selling is not correct, adding: "The reason that the next processing circles are not formed in the same province, in my opinion, is due to wrong policies of the government and under the pretext of supporting domestic industries." They took foreign goods, and quality does not matter when the domestic producer is supported by tariff increases.
The Secretary of the Iranian Minerals Unions, stating that the issue exists in various fields, including mineral and decorative ores, said: Many Iranian industries that in the past were exporters and had something to say, today due to wrong quality policies, their quality decreases and tends to bankruptcy. They have been hit hard.
He said that the tariff increase in order to support domestic products is a very wrong policy, he said: because the Iranian stone market has no foreign competitors and products of any quality are sold, producers do not care much about quality while they can not in foreign markets. They compete and the reason is that our economy is paralyzed and sick.
* Tasnim
