TEHRAN (Iran News) –Secretary of Iranian Association of Detergents, Hygienic and Cosmetic Industries says with continuation of the current trend, he has no doubt that the country will face the shortage of detergents and its crisis because about 15% of the small detergent producing companies have stopped production and some of big companies are working with one-thirds of their capacities to save their brands.

Speaking to ILNA, Hessam Bigdel Loo pointed to the command pricing of officials for detergents and said that command pricing changes once or at most two times a year while the producers provide their raw materials from state-run or private petrochemical companies each week with new prices.

He reiterated that the price of raw materials is fixed based on dollar rate and for this reason the prices of petrochemical products change every week.

He criticized the government’s dual policy in tackling with producers of detergents and petrochemicals, and noted that detergent producers have to buy their raw materials with new price every week while they have to increase the price of their products once or twice a year.

Bigdel Loo went on to say that Iran is an oil-rich country but its oil products have not helped the price of detergents to become cheap and competitive, adding that the final cost of detergent products of Turkey which does not have petrochemical company is cheaper than Iran’s while the Turks buy their raw materials from Iran, and facilities and potentials of Iran have not helped its producers to reduce their production price. Since Iran is under sanctions, the petrochemical companies sell their products to Turkey under the market rate, he added.

He admitted that the rise in the final cost of product has affected Iran’s exports as the country has lost some of its export markets, for example Kyrgyzstan prefers to buy detergents from Turkey than Iran although the distance between Turkey and Kyrgyzstan is longer than the distance between Iran and Kyrgyzstan.

Bigdel Loo went on to say that Iranian producers have lowered the quality of their products to compete with their Turk rivals, and among Iraqis this idea has raised that Turkish products have better quality than Iranian ones and this low quality has forced Iraqis to reject Iranian goods.

He reiterated that if the problem is not resolved, the country would leap into detergent crisis in upcoming months.