Iran produced 1.366 million metric tons of crude steel in January this year, registering 19.7% growth compared to 1.141 million tons produced in the same month last year, according to the latest report published by the World Steel Association.
Iran's steel production in January accounted for 1.026% of the global steel production in the month, which stood at 133.1 million tons, 2.9% less than the global production in January last year, IRNA reported.
China, as usual, dominated steel production in January with nearly 65.5 million tons, recording a 4.7% decline compared to last year. Japan and the US followed with 9.02 and 7.35 million tons respectively.
Iran graduated to the 14th rank from the previous 15th among the biggest steel producer countries in 2014, manufacturing over 16.33 million tons of crude steel. The achievement was in line with the country's 2025 Vision Plan which requires the annual production of at least 55 million tons of crude steel within the next decade. The 65 countries included in the report accounted for approximately 98% of total world crude steel production in 2014.
Although the latest World Steel report places Iran as the 8th country in terms of percentage increase in steel production, all other countries in the top ten growing countries produced only negligible amounts of crude steel, with some of them recording only double-digit productions. For example, Paraguay which recorded the highest production growth with 340%, produced merely 5 tons of steel in January.
Among the ten countries with the highest growth in steel production, Iran ranked first in terms of growth in the volume of production with 225 tons, followed by the United Arab Emirates which added 76 tons to its steel output compared to last January.
Also according to the report, Middle East countries had the highest regional growth with 13.1% owing mainly to growth in Iran and the UAE, followed by the South American region with 6.8% and the Oceania (Australia and New Zealand) with 5.7%.
The region with highest decline in crude steel production was the non-EU countries with -9.3%, followed by East Asian countries and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) with -3.9% and -3.1% respectively. The sharpest decline in steel production was registered in Morocco with -82.7% growth compared with January last year.
