A spokesman for Iranian Mines and Mining Industries Development and Renovation Organization (IMIDRO) said that investment in new mining projects, including opening mines or launching processing industries, had reached $3.2 billion over the past Iranian year ending March 19, reported Press TV.

Mohammad Sepehr said that the figure showed an increase of nearly 60 percent compared to the previous Iranian year when investment in the sector topped $2 billion.

Sepehr said that a boom in investment had taken place despite the sanctions imposed by the US as well as a new coronavirus pandemic that hit Iran in late February.

He said another $2.2 billion worth of mining projects would be launched in the current calendar year, ending March 2021.

IMIDRO says mine discovery in Iran grew by 210 percent over the past Iranian year, to reach 310,000 square kilometers. It says expanding the sector led to the creation of 4,790 new jobs, an increase of 30 percent compared to the previous year.

The growth in Iran’s mining and metals activity comes despite a series of US bans that have specifically targeted the country’s trade of metals.

The bans, enacted in May 2019, came after the US authorities failed in their bid to cut Iran’s sale of oil to zero.

The sanctions are part of an attempt by Washington to force a change in Iran’s nuclear activity as well as its foreign policy.

Iranian authorities insist that the US sanctions have caused a diversification of the economy while they have led to new sources of earning hard currency for the country.

In this period, Iran sold 8.5 million tons of mining products to these three countries, IRNA reported.

In the previous year (which ended in March 2019), Iran generated over $9.2 billion in forex revenues through exporting minerals and mining industry products, selling each ton of such items at $160.

Statistics show that during March 21-November 21, 2019, Iraq imported 5.71 million tons of Iran’s mining products valued at $798 million, accounting for 50 percent of the total figure pertaining to Iranian mining exports to the three countries.

In the same period, Turkey purchased 512,000 tons of mining products from Iran worth $393 million, while Afghanistan imported 2.27 million tons of the same items valued at $291 million, partly less than Iraq.

An analysis of Iran’s foreign trade in the mining sector shows that in the same eight-month time span, the country distributed an average of 1.06 million tons of mining products worth $185 million among these three countries.

More than 500,000 are employed in the Iranian mining industry sector, of which 138,000 are involved solely in the mining sector.

Currently, the domestic mining sector uses 70 percent of the country’s rail transportation capacity.

In the year to March 2019, Iran exported 28 million tons of metals worth $6.83 billion, with steel ingots constituting the major part of the overseas sales.

In this period, Iran exported 5.5 million tons of steel ingots valued at $2.23 billion and steel products worth $1.02 billion.

The report added that based on plans, the output of the mining complex for the 12-month period ending March 19, 2020, is set at 330 kilograms of gold, according to imidro.gov.ir.

The complex is implementing gold extraction projects which include enrichment of low-grade ores, treatment of tailings and renovation of technology to reduce power pollution as well as improvement of quality.

According to the Ministry of Industry, Mine and Trade figures, Iran has 15 gold mines, 12 of which are active.

Gold exploration is underway in most provinces, including East Azarbaijan, West Azarbaijan, Kurdestan, Kerman, Khorasan Razavi, South Khorasan, Isfahan, Yazd, Markazi, Qom, Hamedan and Zanjan.

Iran’s National Geology and Mineral Exploration Organization put Iran’s total proven and probable gold reserves at 320 tons.

The provinces of Tehran, Isfahan, Khorasan Razavi and East Azarbaijan are top gold producing hubs.

Mouteh, located in the city of Barkhar-e Meymeh, is estimated to produce over 300 kilograms of gold per year.

According to IMIDRO statistics, the annual production from the Mouteh Gold Mine amounted to 401 kilograms in the year to March 20, 2019.

“Iran mine sector will not only meet the needs of the country’s industrial plants and construction industry, but they will also increase its exports to some $9-$10 billion worth of minerals and other products by the end of the year,” Deputy Industry, Mining and Trade Minister Jafar Serqini said on the sidelines of a gathering of the country’s supreme council of mining in the city of Zanjan, IRNA reported.

Back in November, the ministry announced that the value of Iranian mineral exports increased by 11.7 percent in the first six months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 21-September 22), compared to the figure for last year’s similar period.

Based on the data released by the ministry, a total of 15.8 million tons of minerals and mining products worth $3.891 billion were exported to other countries in the first half of the current year.

The data also indicated that nearly 40 percent of the total export target for the country’s mining sector had been achieved.

Steel ingot was the top exported product in the sector with $1.198 billion worth of exports, followed by iron ore and iron ore concentrate with $617 million in value, steel products worth $575 million, and cathode copper valued at $262 million, as well as rolled steel products at $230 million.

China, Iraq, Indonesia, Ghana, Pakistan, Turkey, Afghanistan, the UAE, Oman, and Thailand were the major importers of minerals and mining industry products from Iran in the six months.

The value of mineral exports to China reached $1.2 billion, while Iraq imported $454 million of such Iranian products; Indonesia’s imports stood at $422 million, Thailand at $302 million, and Turkey at $296 million.