۱۳۹۶ تیر ۵, دوشنبه

The Catastrophic Destruction of Industries and Mines in Iran



By Mahmoud Hakamian

Iran’s economic crisis has become catastrophic. The most important characteristic feature of this economic disaster is the recession, and consequently, srising unemployment of the young generation and the workforce, which has shown its immense impact in unprecedented loss of life.
Last week, 120 iron ore mines were shut down in Iran. The social consequences of this crisis forced the regime's media to admit, saying: "The shutdown of several mines, and the unemployment of thousands of hardworking workers, which no official authority has reacted to this situation”.
Government affiliated Javan online news agency in an article titled "Who is going to reach out to miners cry?!” Shading tears of crocodiles for workers writes: "30,000 iron ore workers were unemployed," "1000 Unemployed Workers at Mining sector of Mazandaran”, "Kurdistan Mining Areas are on the verge of closure”. These are news headline that has been on news outlets for past few weeks! Along with reports of frequent incidents in mines, including the recent incident at the Urth mine in Golestan, which killed more than 20 miners. The tragedy of hard work and disregard for the working conditions of this class. Of course, it indicates lack of government support from miners more than ever”.
This government’s news agency in continuation, while acknowledging that miners livelihoods have been pushing them for hardest jobs in mines for years, writes: "In recent days, the deputy chairman of the iron ore association has announced shut down of more than 200 mines and unemployment of 30,000 iron ore workers. The reports are stressing that this group has been struggling with many problems for many years. Several consecutive hours of deep underground work without having least standard of safety, standard equipment, and with minimum wage. The conditions have spilled over the life of the workers of the mines of the country over the years and endangered their lives along with their families, in addition to their life threatening circumstances”.
It must be noted that this IRGC mouthpiece media is shading crocodile tears that according provided statistics by this regime, over 80 percent of the mines, large companies and factories are run by government affiliated factions and agencies such as IRGC.
It is also necessary to note that the crisis of the economic downturn in the Iranian regime does not end alone in the mining sector. Rather, the crisis have been intensified in the fields of manufacturing and industry as well. The confessions of the leaders and agents of this regime are showing us the plummeting of the country's basic industries such as Iron Melting, steel Industries, electrical, automotive, and tractor industries, and ... many more.
Following are some examples of confessions by senior executives and regime administrators that are well-documented in the current catastrophic situation of the mother industries and other fundamental industries of the country:
The mouthpiece of terrorist organization Qods force, known as Tsensim, on May 6, 2017, reporting about Iron Melting Industry says, a debt of 6 trillion Toman has placed this industry on the verge of bankruptcy, quoting vice chairman of the Economic Commission of the Parliament, has confessed: “While the Ministry of Roads and urbanization has imported 3.5 million tons of steel products to the country last year, imports from abroad has left domestic steel products without any purchase contracts with the company. These imports put the factory on the brink of bankruptcy, because the products are stored in the company and have no purchase contracts”. This source revealed the continuing corruption in the country as well, by saying: “Due to some, Ministry of Roads’ officials travel to abroad and their huge import revenue from the imports are blocking the purchase of domestic goods.”
Government mouthpiece Tasnim again on May 7, 2017 has reported: "Within these three years, about 75% of the stone production units have been shut down, the remaining are working with less than 30% capacity, only to keep their production unit open on daily basis. They are charged high amount of taxes. There are currently about 22,000 unemployed workers in the stone sector of construction.
One should keep in mind: "When a stone production unit is shut down, its dependent jobs are shut down as well, which means that the unemployment rate in this area should be more than 22,000”.
According to the statistics of Iran, over the past four years, “more than 332,000 people have been become unemployed in the country's construction sector”, according to a recent report by the Iranian government on May 6, 2017, confessing to the heavy shocks of the recession on the housing market.
Better and more accurate inference from the unbelievable dimensions of unemployment, poverty, industries destruction, and destruction of mines industries in Iran, which is considered one of the richest countries in the world, will become more in daylight, when regime’s own mass media in awe of the ever-increasing social protests forced them to confess by saying: "Post-revolutionary governments have led the country to the brink of disaster in the field of economics. Where is the disaster border? The catastrophic border is the huge distance of the classes, which, because of the horrible valley and the horrible dungeon, blows away all the corrective measures and does not allow us to go two steps further”.
The economic downturn in various sectors of the economy, such as gross production GDP growth, employment, real incomes, industrial production, wholesale and retail prices, each has its own effects, and its effects are clearly visible. An example of what has been published by the state media in connection with the closure of mines is a good illustration of the huge crisis that is in line with the predatory and anti-Iran policies of the Iranian regime:
Qods force mouthpiece news agency Tasnim quoting from deputy association of producers and exporters of iron ore in Iran confessed in an article titled “During past three years 90% of iron ore mines have been shut down on June 12, 2017 wrote: “From 145 active small and large iron ore mines in 2013, only nine mines are nowadays active. According to iron ore producers statistics, that this news agency quoting them, there were 98 medium and large mines active in 2014, and  now, there are 9 of them working”.
He added: "For every job in the mine, there are 5 indirect jobs, as a result of the closure of mines, more than 35 thousand people were unemployed, which means that if per person we have annually paid one million tomans of unemployment premium, 360 billion would be paid. In this event, we collected a total of 358 billion tomans from state, as wages last year, in fact, whatever the government's salary was paid, we paid as unemployment insurance”.
Finally, the Iranian Iron producers and exporters association, referred to the widespread corruption among government factions, highlighted the main reasons for the closure of mines in the country:
"1. The infrastructure of rail and roads section is problem, and our shipping and shipping costs are twice as high as our competitors, and therefore we do not have an export advantage.
2. The privatization must be done in real terms, and the state must stop rents, many well-known IRGC companies have enter the mine sector as well, that they do not pay taxes, a cost to competitor of the private sector, which hurts in this economic sector, especially in mine sector.
3. The iron ore is delivered to the iron melting corporation, but it can not pay for the goods, at the same time, we must pay taxes every three months for the money, that we did not receive.
4. Banks, in contrary to their names, are noway Islamic but rather highly interest based. Where could you see such interest rate anywhere in the world? Banks have become brokers instead of their main business functions, they became investment companies, and doing businesses with the money of depositors. Banks instead of being business stimulators, they have gone out of their business function. Parts of banks' shares are involved with the real estate sector, a portion of banks’ money has been borrowed by the government, and so, the banks do not actually have the power to help producers. These are our concerns”.