Review of Iran's Tire Production Industry in 2020-21

The country's tire industry, despite the continuation of sanctions and the coronavirus pandemic conditions, as well as some domestic restrictions, has had a thriving and successful year (March 2020-21) overall; a year that was accompanied by record-breaking production and entry into some new fields. In this regard, breaking of production records in the production of various types of tires was witnessed, and for the first time the annual output surpassed 24 million tires.

Based on the latest released data, 250,186 tons of different types of tires were produced during the 11-month period since the beginning of the past year (March 20, 2020) until February 18, 2021, which was 18% more than the figure of the same period of time in its preceding year.

An 18% rise was also achieved in terms of number, as 23.124 million tires were produced in the 11-month period of the previous year. As reported, 146,458 tons of tires of passenger cars were produced in the mentioned time span of the past year, indicating a 22% growth year on year.

The data of 12-month period of the year is not still released, but it is obvious that the figures will be more outstanding. In addition to the successes achieved in terms of the output amount, the tire manufacturers entered new areas including production of the wide base tires and the tires of SUVs. Wide base tires, which are a new generation of the heavy vehicles’ tires, were produced for the first time in the West Asia by the Iranian producers.

In recent years, with the high investment making of domestic companies and with more emphasis on research and development (R&D), the production of this type of tires with a high-quality standard has been on the agenda, it is while in the past, Iran had to rely on foreign aid to change the generation of tires.

Mostafa Tanha, the spokesman of the Iranian Tire Syndicate, has recently said, “The investments made by companies in the past years in the field of research and development (R&D) and equipment and machinery, are now bearing fruit and we are witnessing the prosperity of companies.”

Now, as the approach of strengthening domestic production is also pursuing in the current Iranian calendar year, which is named “Production: Support and the Elimination of Obstacles”, tire production industry is among the sectors focused for the materialization of this motto.

Iran accounts for 41% of tire output in West Asia, according to Mohsen Safdari, the deputy director of the non-metal industries office of the Iranian Industry, Mining, and Trade Ministry. Development of the country’s tire production industry, not only is to materialize self-reliance, but also is to boost non-oil export and get a larger share of the regional market for Iran. - Tehran Times