Page 55 - IRANRptFeb22

Iran’s urban development minister says Raisi’s mass housing plan ‘not inflationary’
and equity to be sold on the stock market, the official added.
However, successive Iranian governments have struggled to offload old assets to the private sector due to overpricing of estate. According to the Supreme Audit Office, both the former Rouhani government, which was in power for two terms until the summer of this year, and the Raisi administration, which came into office in August, have struggled in selling off assets, with government departments unwilling to play ball.
Iran’s new Minister for Roads and Urban Development Rostam Qasemi has insisted that the Raisi administration’s plan to build 1mn homes a year over its four-year term of office will not add to inflation in the economy, IBENA reported.
President Ebrahim Raisi stated in his election campaign manifesto how he wanted 4mn new homes built for his countrymen as part of a new social housing plan. However, he immediately came under fire for imitating the Maskan e-Mehr ( “Sun” or “Friendship” Housing) plan of the Ahmadinejad era of a decade ago, widely viewed as a failed scheme that left derelict tower blocks across the country due to poor planning and shoddy work performed by contractors.
“Some say the construction of one million housing units will create inflation, but that will not be the case because we will not use government resources to build these units, we have formulated [other] ways to finance this programme, which are not inflationary,” Qasemi was quoted as saying.
He added: "We will soon see measures taken in this period to build the one million housing units per year. And during this time, infrastructure will be provided for a serious leap in production.”
Qasemi added that at a recent construction materials exhibition in Tehran, he encountered startup companies offering methods for low-rise buildings that could form part of the programme.
The predecessor Rouhani administration also attempted to fix the housing crisis in Iran with low-cost homes, but it built only a fraction of what it intended due to ongoing property market shocks caused by very high inflation, sparked by the US reimposition of sanctions on Iran from 2018.
In a parting move, the Rouhani government pushed ahead with plans to build 1.3mn units.
Critics have complained that Maskan-e-Mehr projects are populist initiatives that can tank the property market with a great number of poorly-built properties appearing on the market in areas surrounding cities at the same time. In recent years, a significant number of people who moved into such properties have complained of a lack of utilities including gas connections and bus links to nearby cities.
9.1.11 Metallurgy & mining sector news
Iran’s crude steel production falls 1.8% in 2021
Iran produced 28.5mn tonne of crude steel in 2021, marking a 1.8% y/y decline, according to the World Steel Association (WSA).
The figure placed Iran 10th in the ranking of the world’s top 10 crude steel producers. China topped the list, with an output of 1.032bn tonnes. India, Japan, the US, Russia, South Korea, Germany, Turkey and Brazil ranked second to ninth in that order.
Global crude steel production in 2021 reached 1.911bn tonnes, up 3.6% y/y, the WSA said.
The trade association also said that Iranian steel mills cast 15.1mn tonnes of crude steel in December, up 2.8% y/y.
55 IRAN Country Report February 2022 www.intellinews.com