Iran’s car production has increased by nearly 53 percent year on year in the Persian calendar month ending late July, says a senior official of Iran’s ministry of industries (MIMT).
Soheil Me’marbashi, who heads MIMT’s Transportation Industries Department, said on Monday that output for various types of cars had reached 106,018 units in the period between June 21 and July 21, up from a total of 69,402 recorded for the similar period in 2019.
Me’marbashi said car production had surged by nearly 20 percent for the initial four months of the calendar year ending late July.
Total output between late March and late July amounted to 296,328 cars, he said, up from 248,184 recorded over the same period last year.
The increased production means Iranian car industry is recovering from months of recession that came because of lower demands and closures related to the coronavirus pandemic.
Carmakers around the world have reported historic plunges in output as the pandemic has caused factories and dealerships to close in many countries.
That comes as two main Iranian car manufacturers, namely IKCO and Saipa, had been struggling with low cash supply and logistics problems even before the start of the pandemic in Iran in late February.
Me’marbashi said IKCO had been responsible for a bulk of increased production of cars in Iran during the pandemic months.
IKCO’s total car production for the first four months of current calendar year reached over 160,000 while Saipa churned out nearly 145,000 cars over the same period, said the official.
He added that production for small pickups had shown the highest amount of increase, nearly 33 percent, between March and July with some 25,218 units against 19,020 produced last year.