The World Steel Association (worldsteel) has announced that Iran’s surge in production has pushed the country up on the list of global steel producers.
The international trade body for the iron and steel industry has released its latest figures on global production, which shows a solid gain for Iran.
The new data shows Iran now ranks thirteenth on the list of 66 global steel producers after the country produced 1.645 million tonnes of the metal in May.
The figure indicates a rise from the same period last year, when Iran had produced 1.455 million tonnes of steel.
Iran’s 3.9-percentage point increase comes as the global output suffered a decline of 2.2 percent in the first five months of this year.
China, Japan and India topped the latest worldsteel list.
Iran is the biggest steel producer in the Middle East after Turkey, according to the World Steel Association. Output rose to 1.5 million tonnes in April from 1.3 million tonnes at the end of last year before the international sanctions were lifted in January.
The country has already devised serious plans to increase its steel production capacity to 55 million tonnes per year from the current level of roughly 17 million tonnes per year by 2025. The country’s export capacity is also expected to rise to above 13 million tonnes per year.
Iran is also pushing ahead with the development of several major provincial steel production plans and is already forging ahead with serious plans to bring in foreign investors like Italy’s Danieli and South Korea’s POSCO to the same effect.