TEHRAN – Head of the Domestic Production Center of Iran’s Ministry of Industry, Mining and Trade said the program for indigenizing the knowledge for the production of major industrial equipment has been realized by 110 percent in the previous Iranian calendar year (ended on March 20).

Last year the indigenization of the knowledge for the production of $3.2 billion worth of such equipment in various provinces was on the agenda, however, more than $3.565 billion worth of such products were indigenized, Mohammad-Mehdi Hadavi told IRNA on Saturday.

The Industry Ministry had notified all provinces about their obligations for replacing imported goods with domestically made goods in the mentioned year, and the share of each province was specified, Hadavi explained.

The provinces of Tehran and Isfahan had the best performance in this regard, so that Tehran, with the indigenization of about $1.1 billion worth of equipment and goods, recorded a brilliant performance.

According to the official, the goal of the mentioned program was to indigenize the knowledge for the production of $10 billion worth of commodities by the end of the current Iranian calendar year 1400 (March 2022).

The official noted that the Industry, Mining, and Trade ministry has it on the agenda to indigenize $3.4 billion worth of equipment in the current Iranian calendar year and the shares of various provinces in this regard will be determined in near future.

Earlier this week, Iran’s Deputy Industry, Mining, and Trade Minister Mehdi Sadeqi Niaraki announced that relying on domestic production has saved Iran $3.5 billion during the previous Iranian calendar year.

Since the re-imposition of the U.S. sanctions, the Iranian Industry, Mining, and Trade Ministry was tasked to pursue a program for indigenizing the knowledge for the production of major industrial equipment.

The Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei said in October 2019 that government officials should ban the import of goods that are also produced domestically.

Back in 2019, when the mentioned program was started, the Iranian Industry, Mining, and Trade Minister at the time Reza Rahmani had said that relying on domestic production was going to save $10 billion for the country in two years.

EF/MA