The ministry of industry, mine and trade has unveiled the draft Industrial Development Strategy, Donya-e-Eghtesad reported.
In his latest meeting with the representatives from the Tehran Chamber of Commerce, Hossein Mehrizi, deputy industry minister for planning outlined the content of the draft strategy.
The document, according to Mehrizi, contains a number of policies classified under five major categories, namely financing, infrastructure development, competitiveness, legal environment, and investment and trade development.
Financing
In the draft strategy, 9 policies under five categories have focused on financing. These include: providing financial support for businesses across the country, developing and diversifying financing methods, utilizing the internal resources of the National Development Fund of Iran for foreign currency (forex) financing, paving the way for foreign banks to set up branches in free trade and industrial zones and promoting transparency and facilitating the allocation of banking loans to production and service sectors.
Infrastructure Development
The 17 policies outlined under this category include: setting up an integrated information network, fostering transparency and developing an integrated investment system, strengthening infrastructures and increasing productivity in the industry, mining and trade sectors with a focus on land preparation.
Other major policies mentioned here include: paving the ground for developing free industrial zones, export processing, setting up logistical, industrial districts, using the existing potentials in the country to develop regional trade corridors, reducing harmful impacts of mining activities and industries on the environment in light of international standards, assigning specific agencies to deal with energy-intensive industries, regulating imports and activities of authorized agents of foreign companies in the country.
Competitiveness
The draft strategy also addresses competitiveness in industry, mine and trade under 23 policies. These are defined as follows: facilitating technology and knowledge transfer, managing investment based on the priorities defined in the Advanced Industries Development Roadmap, managing crude mineral exports with a view to complete value chain in products, supporting the development of consortiums, clusters, companies, production and service units, improving enterprise competitiveness through upgrading technologies used in various sectors, supporting the development of modern and advanced industries, involving production associations in decision-making process, regulating and upgrading innovation and industrial ownership system, reducing official trade costs and increasing smuggling costs, encouraging consumers to purchase domestic products through upgrading the quality of the products and using reasonable pricing strategies.
Legal Environment
The draft strategy contains 9 policies to improve business laws and the legal environment. Experts believe that the full implementation of these policies will significantly boost investors’ confidence to engage in productive sectors of the economy.
These policies include reviewing and amending the policies detrimental to production, trade and investment, implementing regulations related to business associations, integrating and strengthening supervisory and prevention mechanisms to reduce breach of contract cases, restricting public agencies’ ownership of enterprises, expediting complaint-handling processes related to the execution of contracts.
Investment, Trade Development
Meanwhile, draft Industrial Development Strategy outlines 18 policies aimed at boosting trade and investment. These strategies mainly focus on modifying the tariff system, providing support for export of goods and services aimed at gaining competitive edge and accessing new markets, developing electronic trade and application of modern trade methods (credit cards, e-commerce), strengthening and improving national standards and quality integrated services in production, import and export, boosting international trade ties, applying for membership in regional and global treaties, and providing fair access to economic data to stop information rent-seeking.
It is noteworthy that during a conference held in August to discuss the government’s economic policy and its plan of action to exit recession, the minister of industry, mine and trade was tasked with developing the draft Industrial Development Strategy. The ministry was urged to submit the draft document to the cabinet within 3 months. However, experts believe that the unofficial status of the new document indicates that there’s a long way to go before the development strategy draft is finalized.
