Azernews.Az

By Fatma Babayeva

Iranian minister has blocked importing of Chevrolet cars after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei criticized imports of U.S. autos.

Iran’s Industry, Mines and Trade Minister Mohammed Reza Nematzadeh ordered to prohibit the import of 24 models of the American car brand Chevrolet, Mehr news agency reported.

Nematzade also made a decision to cancel the import of 200 Chevrolet cars worth $7 million that were to be shipped to Iran from South Korea according to the approval previously given by Iran.

The requested batch of the Chevrolet cars was not made in U.S. It was agreed that the Islamic Republic would import automobiles produced by South Korea. However, after the minister’s decision, the importer has been notified that it does not have a permission to import those cars any more.

This decision followed Ali Khamenei’s speech criticizing the U.S. car industry last week.

In his remarks, Khamenei asked the Iranian government to support domestic industrial production, stressing out that even Americans are not using their own vehicles as they are heavy and consume too much fuel.

Meanwhile, Chevrolet’s producer General Motors Co. announced that although Iran is highly lucrative market, the company currently has no plans to enter this market.

Today, Iran's automobile industry produces about 900,000 vehicles a year and plans to increase this figure to 3 million by 2025.

Two local companies control more than 90 percent of Iranian automobile market. These companies are Iran Khodro which assembles Peugeot-branded vehicles and SAIPA produces Citroens and Kias. These manufacturers also assemble Renaults.

Iran sees automobile industry as the biggest field of non-oil economy. This industry accounts for nearly 10 percent of Iranian GDP.

Lifting of the international sanction imposed on Iran creates better opportunities for the country to improve the given sector.

Recently, Iranian Industry, Mines and Trade Ministry has obliged foreign carmakers to use 20-percent Iranian-made car parts while assembling cars if they want to operate in the Iranian market.

The ministry has also obliged the Iranian car makers to purchase 40 percent of the parts used in car production from the domestic market.

Today, only 15-20 percent of car parts cannot be produced in Iran which is due to the fact that launching their production lines is not economically beneficial. These parts mostly include electronic car parts.

The government sees fully privatization of the car industry as a tool to improve this field.

Officials believe privatization is a key strategy for the rehabilitation of the Iranian economy and will facilitate upgrading the Iranian car industry, as well as, its growth.

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Fatma Babayeva is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Fatma_Babayeva

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