Hidden subsidies | 90% drop in paper production as a result of allocating 4200 Tomans of import currency in previous years
According to the economic correspondent of Fars News Agency, these days, when the discussion on reforming the 4200 Toman currency is hot, some producers consider the continuation of the previous procedure and allocating preferential currency for importing similar domestically produced goods as a disaster for domestic products and call on the government to reconsider this issue. .
In this case, Ali Akbar Safarian, a paper producer, says: “Improper import of paper with a currency of 4200 Tomans in the past has dealt a severe blow to our country’s paper factories.”
He added: The line of a Mazandaran wood and paper industry company with a production capacity of 90,000 tons of printing paper and newspaper paper, has been unused for several years, and this year we are producing with only 10 to 15% of capacity.
He continued: “This year, we were able to produce about 5,000 tons of paper for the country’s educational books.”
Safarian pointed out that the existing paper production capacities in the country can meet up to 70% of the country’s needs, adding: “If self-sufficiency plans in paper production are implemented, we can achieve this self-sufficiency by next year.”
He added that most of the country’s paper mills work below their capacity, adding: How can we compete with this preferred currency when the government comes to the war of industry with $ 4,200?
The CEO of Mazandaran Wood and Paper Industries Company continued: They import with the currency of 4,200 Tomans, but the domestic producer has to buy foreign wood, parts, raw materials with $ 27,000 Tomans and then produce.
Safarian added: “As a result of these problems, Mazandaran Wood and Paper Industries Company is subject to Article 141 of the Commercial Code and a problem will be created for it.”
He continued by pointing out that some factories do not have a license to use domestic wood: “These factories participate in auctions of the Ministry of Jihad for Agriculture, and sometimes they also win auctions and use domestic wood, while such a right.” Do not have.
He stated that The Forest Organization has not given a single kilogram of wood to industries since 1396He added that the organization used the forest respiration plan as an excuse and did not even give the broken and fallen branches of forest trees to the factories.
Safarian, who spoke in a special news interview, added: In 1398, 40,000 cubic meters were marked in Mazandaran in the area covered by Mazandaran Wood and Paper Company, but they did not give us even one kilo of wood.
He added: “We have signed a memorandum of understanding with the Forest Organization regarding the use of breeding wood, up to 30,000 cubic meters, and we have a demand, but so far they have not given even a kilo of wood.”
* We have the ability to produce the required printing and writing papers
Afsaneh Mehrabi, Director General of the Textile, Clothing and Cellulose Office of the Ministry صمت In this regard, he says: “Domestic production units have the ability to produce printing and writing papers required by the country and should be supported.”
He pointed out that we have 3 production units in the country that have the ability to produce the required printing and writing papers in the country, adding: “We have several plans in this field, but the discussion Strict rules Catchy Quarantine for raw materials, import duty for paper import, currency of 4,200 Tomans for paper and tax exemption of 9% value added for import are among the problems..
He continued by stating that the multiplicity of decision centers does not make comprehensive decisions and production has been affected by these issues: Mazandaran wood and paper factory can produce 100% of the country’s newspaper paper and 44,000 tons of printing and writing paper To produce.
Mehrabi added: “The amount of paper required for the country’s education textbooks is about 45,000 tons, and this factory alone can provide the paper needed for education.”
Referring to the problems that had been created for this production unit in previous years, he added: “This unit is now fully prepared to produce full capacity for printing and writing paper.”
Director General of the Textile, Garment and Cellulose Office of the Ministry صمت “Cultivation of fast tree species,” he said الرشد It is being implemented in the form of a plan in the Ministry of Jihad for Agriculture, and this plan started a year ago, and some fields have been planted with these species.
The CEO of Mazandaran Wood and Paper Industries Company also said: If the license of cellulose factories is issued without permission and without providing wood resources, the situation will get worse.
Kamran Pourmoghaddam, The director of wood cultivation project of the Ministry of Jihad-e-Agriculture also said in this regard: the Forests Organization has done its utmost cooperation to supply the raw materials of Mazandaran wood and paper factory.
He added: “The main task of the Forests and Rangelands Organization is to protect forests, so the projects it implements, including wood cultivation, are directly or indirectly aimed at protecting forests.”
He continued: “We do not have a direct duty in supplying wood, but in the sixth development plan of the country for the development of wood cultivation, a small goal of 75,000 hectares in Considered It is said that by the end of 1399, we carried out about 50,000 hectares of wood cultivation operations, and with the goal of 1400, with the jihadi movement, our goal is to cultivate 40,000 hectares.
The director of the wood cultivation project of the Ministry of Jihad for Agriculture, emphasizing that we did our best to meet the needs of wood and paper factories, added: At the base price, provide wood to factories.
* The quality of internal papers is lower
Mohammad Alavi Tabar, deputy director of the Research Organization of the Ministry of Education, also said in this regard: the quality of domestic papers is lower compared to foreign samples, which increases production costs by about 20%.
He added: “Education intends to buy domestic paper and we have always supported domestic production, but our paper is divided into two parts: image-based and text-based. In the image-oriented section, which makes up about 40% of our books, it demands its own quality, such as whiteness, lint, and uniformity, which, if the paper quality is low, does not convey the educational message properly.
He added: “About 60% of our products are text-based. Two main issues in textbooks are important to us, the first is quality and the second is delivery time. The quality of domestic papers is lower compared to foreign samples, which therefore increases production costs by about 20%, but due to the support of domestic production, we emphasized the two companies of publishing Iran textbooks and offset that the first priority is to provide Textbook paper of domestic production.
Alavi Tabar pointed out: The next issue is the time of paper delivery, which begins in September of next year and will continue until the end of August next year. Given that we have to print about 146 million volumes of textbooks, paper delivery time is very important to us, but unfortunately we have seen a lot of misconduct in the past.
He specified: “Since October 10, when we signed a memorandum of understanding with Mazandaran Wood and Paper Company; It was emphasized that on the condition that the program and budget organization provides us with credit, we will order because we The difference The price of government and free currency must be provided, and if it is not provided, the price of books will increase about two and a half times.
“One of the main goals of the organization is to keep textbook prices low,” said the deputy head of the Ministry of Education’s research organization.
Afsaneh Mehrabi, Director General of the Textile, Garment and Cellulose Office of the Ministry صمت He also stated in this regard: The main task of the ministry صمت, Is to support production, since 1996, when the issue of 303 thousand cubic meters was raised, regular meetings have been held, even the approval of the facilitation headquarters to fulfill this demand, but unfortunately the Ministry of Jihad Agriculture did not accompany.
He continued: Since 1996, when this issue was raised in the facilitation headquarters and obligations were set to be fulfilled, but so far it has not been fulfilled.
Mehrabi in response to the question of why the supply of raw materials is not done through imports? Said with strict rules Catchy Quarantine, which exists by the Plant Protection Organization, and also considering that wood is effective in many industries and is considered as the main raw material, we expect the Plant Protection Organization to help in this matter.
He pointed out: The Plant Protection Organization has announced that there must be a quarantine station and disinfection. Now, if we want to import wood from the southern ports and do quarantine there, because most of the cellulose units are located in the north of the country. The issue of shipping costs makes this issue unjustifiable.
He added: “Therefore, this work should be done in the northern provinces, ie the three provinces of Mazandaran, Golestan and Gilan were applicants, and even in the special economic zone of Mazandaran province, there was an investor for the quarantine position, but according to the existing criteria, even in Amirabad port did not agree and eventually led to the establishment of this station in Gomishan port and its affairs were handed over to Golestan governor. It has been about a year and a half now and we expect the work to be done as soon as possible.
Director General of the Textile, Garment and Cellulose Office of the Ministry صمت He specified: Printing and writing paper in the list of foreign exchange items was 4200 Tomans until the second month of 1998, and from this date onwards, only a certain amount for the Ministry of Guidance and Printing and Publishing is about 80 million dollars and about 45 million dollars for education and Breeding was considered and it was decided to import paper only for these two collections with a currency of 4200 Tomans.
Safarian, CEO of Mazandaran Wood and Paper Industries Company, also said in this regard: “Our company was informed that only once can we give you 3,000 cubic meters of wood, of which 3,000 cubic meters is the food of the factory for two days.”
He added: when the import is allocated 4200 Tomans and we have to buy wood with 27 thousand Tomans inside; At the same price that we buy wood abroad, we have to peel it at the same price, that is, we actually buy wood twice, if in our factory the wood is easily peeled by a machine, and these conditions are also available to a few people. Is, although in all countries the tree is cut down.
Safarian continued: We said quarantine in the port Astrakhan Put it and we will pay for it because the work is accelerating.
He mentioned: In our complex, a line with a capacity of 90,000 tons of production is left unused, while education needs a total of 60,000 tons, and we can easily meet the total needs of education.
The CEO of Mazandaran Wood and Paper Industries stated: “We signed a memorandum of understanding with education, according to which it was decided that we would provide them with paper and they would use it, and if it was acceptable, they would buy it from us, otherwise Do not buy. Our factory sent 100 tons of paper for education, which was done in two printing houses and was also approved. Meetings were held and finally a memorandum of understanding was signed stating that if you want to buy from us, sign the contract before our costs go up.
Safarian said: “The quality of the paper is not a problem, and the production aid production units bought it from us, and they did not have a problem.” We published the Quran, religious books and we have no problem with the quality of the paper.
He also said about the time of delivering the paper to the Ministry of Education: “We had the first meeting with the Ministry of Education on April 6, this year. From this date until now, no contract has been signed and the order has not been given in a good time.
Kamran Pourmoghaddam, The director of the wood cultivation project of the Ministry of Jihad Agriculture also said in this regard: according to the approval of the facilitation headquarters, the Forest Organization is allowed to observe the laws and leave the formalities based on the base price of the expert every year, wood extraction in proportion to gradual delivery and wood Provide wood cultivation to this company and because it has mentioned leaving the formalities; Therefore, the Forest Organization has given the company a formal leave to the best of its ability.
He added: “After this decision, we announced to the companies in the facilitation headquarters that you should take delivery of the first stage of wood, and on the other hand, we sent a letter to the Economic Council to leave the formalities of other products.” Is.
Pourmoghaddam He continued: “We welcome the part that can meet the needs of wood in order to preserve the forests by observing the indicators of the Plant Protection Organization.”
Yasser Ahmadvand, Deputy Minister of Culture of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, also said in this regard: The preferred currency was not allocated in 1999 and 1400, and the total preferred currency allocated in late 1998 was about $ 40 million, which provides less than 10% of domestic demand.
Noting that we are neither importers nor buyers of paper, he added: “The cultural sector of the country, including the press, books and publications, must meet their needs from the market, and because the gap between market prices and consumption in the field of culture is large.” So a little bit of preferred currency was given to the cultural sector, which companies imported and distributed.
In this case, some users of the “My Fars” system registered a subject entitled “What are the government’s foreign exchange policies to maintain the national monetary value?” They demanded that all aspects of the issue of allocating or not allocating 4200 Tomans to the import of goods be investigated.
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