Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Why the Minister of Industry Resigned?

The outgoing Industry Minister Ali Reza Tahmasbi in a resignation letter dated 5 August 2007 to President Ahmadinejad outlines his differences of opinion with the president and the challenges facing Iran’s industry. Fars news agency carried the text of the letter. Following are the resignation letter highlights.

- Ahmadinejad’s insistence on stabilizing the prices of certain industrial goods such as cement, sugar, dairy products, automobiles, and household goods, despite the rise in the final prices of factors of production of these goods.

- The inability of the ministry to allocate essential water and electricity to producers, which next year will reach 8,000 Megawatts of electricity, 50 million cubic meters of water, and 20 million cubic meters of natural gas a day, due to a lack of necessary developmental investment in this sector .

- The lack of availability of necessary credit and foreign exchange in the industrial and mineral sector.

- The lack of co-ordination between commercial and production policies and operational intrusion by some of the government bodies, such as the Paragraph 13 group.

- The ministry faces the changes being imposed regarding the organic structure of the mines and mines ministry, which will lead to increases in management problems in the ministry.

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