Tehran -

 More than 50 years after the production of the first passenger car in Iran, Tehran classifies the auto industry as the second most important industrial sector in the country after the oil and gas sector. .

The latest data of the International Organization of Automobile Manufacturers (OICA) show that the automotive industry in Iran advanced 3 centers on the global level, producing 949,817 passenger cars, ranking tenth among the developed countries in the automotive industry, during the first 9 months of 2022.

According to the data of the International Organization of Automobile Manufacturers, China ranked first, producing more than 16 million passenger cars, followed by the United States, which produced more than 5 million, then Japan third, India fourth, and South Korea ranked fifth in the classification of the international organization.

Despite the sector's suffering as a result of US sanctions that impeded the flow of spare parts from abroad, the group of companies manufacturing and assembling passenger cars in Iran managed to record a growth of 31.2% during the first nine months of 2022 compared to the same period last year, when it ranked 13th in the world.

In the latest report of car manufacturers in Iran, Iran Khodro announced that its daily production rate reached 2,700 cars this November, while Saipa said that daily production amounted to about 2,000 cars.

With the recent increase in production, the passenger car industry in Iran maintains its first position in the region, crossing the barrier of one million cars per year, according to Mahdi Khatibi, CEO of Iran Khodro Automotive Industry, who recently talked about plans to raise exports to Asian and African countries in addition to Russia.

US sanctions

Although the auto industry sector in Iran recorded a leap in profits after the approval of the nuclear agreement in 2015, and the entry of foreign investors into the country, Washington’s withdrawal from it in 2018 put an end to the cooperation of foreign companies with Tehran, which incurred great losses for the latter due to the retreat of Western and Eastern companies from the contracts concluded. with her.

With the return of US sanctions on Iran, many European car companies left - including Peugeot, Citroen, France's Renault, Swedish Volvo, German Mercedes-Benz, and other eastern ones such as China's Brilliance and Shenghan - which at that time led to a decline in car production in this country to less than half due to the difficulty in providing raw materials and obstructing the import of spare parts from abroad.

Iran Khodro and SAIPA - the two largest car manufacturers in Iran - also faced severe difficulties in delivering pre-sold orders to customers, which led to customers gathering in front of their headquarters to demand delivery of their cars.

The repercussions of the US sanctions - on the auto industry in Iran - did not stop at preventing the attraction of foreign investments and obstructing imports of spare parts, but rather extended to obstructing the export of production to some countries in the region such as Ukraine, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Mauritania and Lebanon, according to the official IRNA news agency, which confirms the presence of Iranian factories in Some countries like Iraq, Syria, Azerbaijan, Venezuela, Belarus and Senegal.

The Iranian guide calls for improving the quality of local cars (Iranian press)

Self-sufficiency

On this subject, the economic researcher Peyman Yazdani believes that the US sanctions constituted an incentive to advance the automobile sector towards achieving self-sufficiency, explaining that Tehran had planned in 2003, in its twentieth document tagged as "Iran on the Horizon 2025", for the passenger car sector to occupy the first place in Middle East, fifth in Asia, and 11th in the world, and this has already been achieved so far.

Speaking to Al-Jazeera Net, Yazdani says that his country has addressed its deficit in auto parts - after the imposition of US sanctions and the refusal of foreign companies to provide them with the necessary equipment - by planning to localize them and achieve self-sufficiency, in addition to designing modern models and constantly developing them to avoid imports and limit the exit of hard currency. .

The efforts of Iranian companies were not limited to the localization of spare parts, as "Iran Khodro" and "Saipa" have taken tremendous steps in the field of manufacturing national engines during the past years - and the words of the researcher Yazdani - who expected the sector to continue to grow in the coming years in terms of increasing production and introducing new models. Modernization on the one hand, and the provision of foreign markets, especially after Iran's accession to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, on the other hand.

Yazdani concluded that the criticisms leveled by the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei - in early February - against the car manufacturers in his country because of their lack of durability and sobriety, and his call to improve their quality and respect for their users, formed the basic nucleus of the leap that the sector achieved during the past nine months.

Low quality

It is true that the auto industry sector in Iran has made a leap during the last year in increasing the volume of production, which reached one million cars. Users of these vehicles are still complaining about their low quality, and Iranian observers see the ban on importing foreign vehicles as a factor for forcing a large segment of citizens to acquire the national industry. .

In this context, the economic researcher, Ghulam Reza Moqaddam, believes that foreign sanctions on the Iranian economy and depriving Tehran of importing many advanced technologies have prompted a limitation of importing industries for which similar copies are available at home.

Muqaddam believes - in his interview with Al-Jazeera Net - that the increase in the volume of car production in Iran comes at the expense of quality, realizing that the low prices imposed by the government on car-producing companies have incurred heavy losses, which led to a decline in the quality of production.

It is known that the Iranian government sets a ceiling for the prices of cars offered by national companies, which constitutes an incentive to register a large segment of citizens to own them in order to sell them in the free market at prices that may reach double, which prompted some companies to offer limited numbers of their cars on the Tehran Stock Exchange to sell them at close prices. Very free market.

The auto industry in Iran accounts for 3.5% of the gross national product, according to the latest statistics published by the semi-official Fars News Agency.

Although there are no unified statistics on the number of workers in this sector, some media outlets talk about one million workers and employees working directly and indirectly in the government and private sectors throughout the country.

Kwik car is a medium model produced by the Iranian company SAIPA (Al-Jazeera)

The beginning of the industry

Under license from the British Talbot company, Iran manufactured its first car, the peykan, in 1967 at the Iran National Company, or what is known today as Iran Khodro.

In the same year, it also produced passenger buses and trucks.

To this day, "Iran Khodro" is considered one of the largest car manufacturers along with "Saipa", as they produce about 90% of the total cars in this country, and the state owns between 14 and 16% of the shares of the two companies.

There are also many car manufacturers in Iran within the private sector, including Pars Khodro, Karman Motor, Zamiad, Bahman, and Modiran Khodro. Most of their energies are poured into assembling foreign cars, especially Chinese and Russian ones.