IMIDRO, Iran's largest state-owned holding company for the development and renewal of the mining industry, said on Sunday that in the last reporting month (23 July - 22 August this year), the country's exports totaled 633,050 tons of steel, up 37 percent from 462,000 tons a year earlier.
Khouzestan Steel Company topped the list of nine large exporting companies with 174,772 tonnes, while Iranian Alloy Steel Company (IASCO) closes the list with 510 tonnes total exports per month, the statement said.
Earlier this month, the government announced its intention to impose a strict 25 percent tariff on the export of unprocessed iron products to protect steelmakers from raw material shortages.
Official figures show that for the calendar year ending March 2019, Iran produced a record 35 million tonnes of steel, while exports were 7 million tonnes.
The plans to expand the metallurgical industry are being implemented against the backdrop of American sanctions, which significantly affected the export of oil, a traditional source of income for the country's budget.
Experts believe that Washington will have huge difficulties in imposing similar restrictions on Iranian metal exports, despite the ban imposed by the White House in May.
Industry sources say Iran aims to become the seventh largest steel producer in the world by 2025, targeting 55 million tonnes of total annual steel production.
At the end of August, Iran's Ministry of Industry, Mining and Trade announced that in the first 7 months of 2019, the country produced almost 14.988 million tons of raw steel, which means a 6.4 percent increase compared to 2018.
Data released earlier in August by the Iranian Steel Producers Association showed that the country's total steel imports fell to 95,000 tonnes from the end of March to the end of June this year, up from 293,000 tonnes in the same period 2018- go.
The change in the trade balance in the steel sector of Iran came after the US sanctions in force for several months on Iranian exports of industrial metals, including steel products.
