Industrial Investment, the Priority in Over 260 Underprivileged Towns
Deputy Minister of Industry, Mine and Trade and Head of Industrial Development and Renovation Organization of Iran (IDRO) says the organization in its regional balance project intends to direct new industrial investment towards over 260 towns where they have faced the lowest investment.
Speaking on a TV program, Mr. Ali Nabavi said that during the 13th government, one of the programs of the industry ministry is to balance investment and renovation hat IDRO has a great task regarding it.
He added that many industrial investments have been done in the country in the past decades but they have not been balanced, for example, the country faces lack of balance in the production chain of a product like steel, and the volume of investment in rolling sector has been too much while the investment in the lower links like production of ingot and sheet has been insufficient.
Nabavi further said that one of the goals of the regional balance project is to correct the defects in the field of investments in the production chains. He added that in some regions, investment has been more than need as they have faced shortage of labor forces and at the same time in some areas, the investment has been very little in a way that it has led to the rise in unemployment.
He noted that migration because of lack of investment balance has created social and political problems, adding that they should invest in areas to prevent the wave of migration and to this end, the organization has raised some incentives for investment in the target towns.
He added that out of 465 towns of the country, 107 are in the zone number 1 and 156 in the zone number 2 of investments. It means industrial investment in those towns have been zero or very little.
He reiterated there will be no more incentives for investment in the zones 3 and 4 because those zones have almost been saturated of investment but those projects which are underway will be completed.
Nabavi then touched upon developing Phase 14 of South Pars by domestic experts and said that development of this phase has happened by a consortium comprised of 8 domestic companied led by the IDRO without involvement of any foreign com
pany.