Iran to Ban or Impose Heavy Tariffs on Iron Ore Exports

The Iranian Ministry of Industries, Mining and Trade, is planning to either completely forbid or impose heavy tariffs on iron ore exports in the next Iranian year starting from Mar20. The policy of tariffs is mostly to avoid exporting raw iron ore, creating more additional value, and meet the requirements from domestic steel industries.

In order to realize the goal of producing 55 MnT of steel per annum, Iran needs 160 MnT of iron ore which necessarily requires the amount of exports to be reduced to favor domestic steel output.

Iran's exports of iron ore concentrate for the past Iranian year stood at 5.552 MnT, up almost twice on a yearly basis, as per Tehran Times. Amid, rising exports from the country, Iran has levied a 25-percent duty on exports of iron ore since September 23. The new duty is encouraging production of more processed minerals such as pellet and concentrate instead of selling the raw minerals.

Iran iron ore concentrate production during the first ten months of the current Persian year (Apr'19-Jan'20), witnessed 3% rise Y-o-Y to 39.341 MnT as against same period last year at 38.162 MnT, as per IRIB.