According to caretaker of Iran’s Ministry of Industry, Mine and Trade Ja’far Sarqeini, the annual iron ore exports from Iran had declined to four million tons this year from 22-23 million tons recorded between 2008 and 2013, Press TV reported on Saturday.

He said decreased exports of raw minerals have helped Iran become a global powerhouse for production of metals.

The official said steel exports from Iran topped 12 million tons per annum (mtpa) over the last calendar year ending March 2019 while imports remained at levels between 200,000 and 300,000 tons.

That comes as Iran was a net steel importer in 2012 with over 6.5 million tons of imports recorded that year against 1.5 million tons it shipped to other countries.

Sarqeini, a long-serving government official overseeing the metals and mining sector, said Iran was one of the few countries in the world in 2019 whose steel output growth of 6.5 percent outpaced a global production rise of 3.5 percent.

He said Iran, currently the 10th leading steel producer in the world, eyes to increase its output capacity to 55 million tons a year by 2025.

“We have currently 37 mtpa of steel production capacity and another 20 million is being implemented,” said Sarqeini.

The caretaker minister said steel industry had become fully indigenized in Iran and Iranian mills have obtained highly-advanced technologies like PERED® to convert iron oxides to reduced products that are suitable for steel making.

According to the WSA report in January, Iran’s raw steel output witnessed a 46.7 percent growth compared to the figure for the same time span in 2019, whereas the global average production of the item grew by only 2.1 percent year-on-year, IRNA reported.

In January 2020, Iran produced 2.89 million tons of raw steel, indicating a 924,000-ton increase compared to the figure for the same period last year, which was 1.97 million tons.

This comes as raw steel production by 64 countries in the same month stood at 154.43 million tons, showing a rise of 3.2 million tons compared to the figure for January 2019, which amounted to 151.22 million tons.

In January 2020, the world’s top five steel producers were China (84.26 million tons), India (9.22 million tons), Japan (8.22 million tons), the US (7.7 million tons) and Russia (six million tons) respectively.

According to figures by the Iranian Ministry of Industry, Mine and Trade, the country produced over 20 million tons of raw steel during the first 10 months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 21, 2019-January 21, 2020), up by 6.8 percent year-on-year.

In the same duration last year, Iran’s raw steel output stood at 18.73 million tons.

In addition, Iran’s production of steel products reached 17.58 million tons during March 21, 2019-January 21, 2020, showing an increase of 9.3 percent compared to the figure for the same time span a year ago, which amounted to 16.09 million tons.

During the same 10-month period to January 21, Iran exported 8.8 million tons of steel ingots and products, with overseas sales of steel ingots accounting for more than 66 percent of the total figure.

Figures by the Iranian Steel Producers Association (ISPA) shows that in this period, 5.82 million tons of steel ingots and 2.98 million tons of steel products were exported.

During the same 10-month time span a year ago, Iran had destined 3.97 million tons of steel ingots to foreign markets, which was 47 percent less than the country’s exports during March 21, 2019-January 21, 2020.