Non-oil goods worth more than $1.1 billion were exported by the cooperative sector during the past Iranian year (ended March 20), deputy minister of cooperatives, labor and social welfare, Hamid Kalantari said on Sunday. Referring to increased production, export and employment through the cooperative sector as a major policy of the labor ministry, the official noted that more than 1.5 million jobs have been created by over 100,000 cooperatives currently in industrial, mineral and housing sectors across the country, IRNA reported. Article 44 of the Constitution stipulates that the national economy falls into three categories of public, cooperative and private sectors. The general policies outlined in Article 44 of the Constitution intend to increase the share of the cooperative sector in the national economy to 25 percent by the end of the Fifth Five-Year Economic Development Plan in 2016.
