Iranian home appliances The need for a strategic document to support the home appliance industry / method of supporting automakers was wrong
According to the economic correspondent of Fars News Agency, with the departure of Korean home appliance brands from Iran after the oppressive US sanctions in 1397, the home appliance market was subject to turmoil such as rising prices and the scarcity of some goods. With these conditions, domestic home appliance manufacturers took action to compensate for the dependence on imports by increasing production and reducing the shock to this market, so with the measures taken regarding production, the manufacturers of this industrial sector of the country achieved success. So that now there is no shortage in the home appliance market.
But the remarkable thing about the home appliance market is that the import of home appliances has been banned for the past three years, and this ban is still going on, so with these conditions, it has become a matter of public opinion that the production of home appliances without a foreign competitor in the country It may hinder the improvement of the quality of domestic products and ultimately cause اجحاف Consumer rights, so in order to examine the status of home appliance production and how to improve the quality and quantity of products in this sector, an interview was conducted with Mohammad Hassan Sabouri Deilami, an economist, which you can read in detail below:
Fars: Three years after the ban on the import of home appliances, the ban on the import of home appliances was recently raised, but the continuation of the ban on imports and unconditional support for domestic home appliance manufacturers has raised concerns that an unrivaled market for manufacturers Domestic will reduce the quality of production and abuse the consumers of domestically produced goods, what do you think is the solution to support home appliance manufacturers? At present, a significant part of the parts required for production is imported, can we hope to increase domestic production and meet market needs with these conditions?
Sabouri Deilami: After the US sanctions in 1997 and the emergence of many currency problems, we inadvertently had to ban the import of home appliances, while at that time there were two Korean brands of home appliances that make up a significant part of our home appliance market. They also left the Iranian market. Therefore, the home appliance market was in turmoil for a while, but after a while, domestic manufacturers increased the production to a large extent, controlling the home appliance market turmoil, and therefore the experience of the last 3 years showed that we have the capacity to produce the appliances we need.
Fars: But part of meeting the needs of the market is done through smuggled imports, that is, despite the fact that the import of home appliances is prohibited, but the import of smuggled home appliances is done to the country.
Saburi Deilami: Yes, it is true that there has been informal import of home appliances in the last 3 years and before that, and of course, part of the import of home appliances is done through border areas and backpacks. But the Statistics Center of Iran has recently published a report that shows that in 1999, the consumption of home appliances among Iranian households increased.
According to the report, among the households that bought electrical appliances in 1999, 51.8 bought domestic appliances, 36.8 bought foreign appliances and 11.4 bought domestic and foreign appliances.
* A program should be developed to support the home appliance industry
In order to support the manufacturers of home appliances, we must have a plan. If we do not want to happen in the automotive industry if we support the industry, we must have a specific plan to support the production of the home appliance industry in Iran. Therefore, in this program, a time frame should be specified to support domestic appliance manufacturers. For example, set a 5-year period during which tariff barriers or import bans will be imposed to support domestic production.
Fars: How should this program be implemented and monitored?
Saburi Deilami: As mentioned, in the first step, a period of time should be set to support domestic manufacturers, and during this period, producers should be supported through import bans or tariff barriers. In the second step, dependence on imports of parts should be reduced to reduce vulnerability. Therefore, component makers should be supported so that the parts needed for production are supplied from domestic manufacturers.
* Develop a strategic document to support the home appliance industry
Therefore, to support the home appliance industry, a strategic document should be in the ministry صمت This document should specify in full detail what protections are to be provided to home appliance manufacturers, and specify exactly what is expected of them.
For example, this document should specify that a 5-year period has been set for a ban on the import of home appliances, and after this period, the ban will be lifted, and during this period, domestic home appliance manufacturers must be able to compete with foreign products. .
At present, domestically produced home appliances meet a significant part of the market needs, but we are still dependent on imported parts for production, so parts manufacturers and their organizations must provide a plan for what part of the dependence on imported parts will be reduced in the next 5 years. This issue should also be mentioned in the strategic document.
* Specify a schedule to improve the quality of home appliance production
Also, based on the strategic document, it should be determined where we will be in the field of home appliance production in the next 5 years and how much the quality of the products will be improved. So, if there is a strategic document and its accurate implementation, we can hope that at the end of a 5-year plan in the production of home appliances, we will have the appropriate quality and competitiveness.
Fars: In your opinion, should the import ban or tariff protections be temporary?
Saburi Deilami: I do not want to say that it is temporary, but I say that this ban is based on a plan and the details of this plan should be fully clarified from now on, for example, at the end of a 5-year period when the import ban or tariff protections were lifted. Homeowners should not write letters asking for support and saying that imports will cause us to go bankrupt.
Fars: You emphasize that the strategic document supporting the production of home appliances should be provided by the Ministry صمت To be compiled. Who is overseeing the implementation of this strategic document? The country’s automobile industry has been supported for many years, and even in the last three years, the import of cars has been banned, but despite these conditions, domestic cars not only have nothing to say in global markets, but also people inside the country are not satisfied with quality. How should the implementation of this document be monitored so that both the goals of that document are achieved and home appliance manufacturers do not enter the cycle of low-quality products such as car manufacturers?
Saburi Deilami: In the automotive industry, such a thing has never happened, that is, no time has ever been set for automakers to produce their products based on it. اتقاء Give. But in the case of home appliances, from the very beginning, when factories are buying production lines and investing to increase production, they must improve the quality, because if they do not do so, foreign products will surely take over the market in the next 5 years.
* The need for ministry supervision صمت On the strategic document of home appliance production
Supervision is also the responsibility of the Ministry of Industry, Mines and Trade On this The ministry must submit a performance report every six months. Therefore, if a five-year plan is to be developed each year, it must be fully defined what the quality of the products is and to what extent the manufacturers have been able to reduce their dependence on imported parts.
Countries such as Japan and South Korea also set a 10-year timetable to support their domestic industries, such as automobiles, but we implemented their programs to support semi-finished industries, and Although We have always had programs to support the automotive industry, but no timetable has ever been set for this support, and therefore, after several decades, the country’s automotive industry is still in its infancy. Therefore, any kind of support for domestic industries should be done according to a schedule and with supervision and based on terms and conditions so that at the end of the period, producers have no excuse.
Once all the details of a support program are fully defined and the conditions are met, manufacturers can easily plan to invest in their product lines and make these investments if it is cost-effective for them.
As mentioned, if there is a capacity to produce parts needed for the home appliance industry in the country, manufacturers should buy their parts from domestic parts manufacturers, while unfortunately, despite this domestic capacity, manufacturers import their required parts. Therefore, the strategic document must fully specify that manufacturers must use the production capacity of domestic component makers.
* We made a mistake in supporting the automakers
I am sure that if many parts of home appliances are produced in the country, the price of the final product will be competitive with world prices, and new technologies must be imported to improve the quality. So I repeat here that we made a mistake about how to support the car manufacturers because we never implemented a timeliness policy to support them, and once or twice when it was decided to change car import tariffs, carmakers were prevented from writing letters and such issues. They took the import.
Fars: During the last three years, there has been a lot of emphasis on supporting the domestic production of home appliances and many people have bought Iranian goods only to support domestic products, but unfortunately due to the low quality of their goods need to be repaired, some They are not provided with proper after-sales service, why are our producers ignoring this issue, despite the fact that the world’s leading manufacturers provide excellent after-sales service to consumers?
Saburi Deilami: Here I go back to Japan and South Korea. If we review the history of industry support in these two countries, we will see that the people of these two countries based on the strategic document that was defined to support domestic industries. Although At first, the quality of their products was not very satisfactory and could not compete with American products, but they bought domestically produced goods, but in return, the manufacturers, based on the same strategic document, were obliged to upgrade their products and at the end of the set time, customer satisfaction. Earned themselves.
Therefore, as mentioned, all strategic items should be mentioned in detail in the strategic document. This document should include how to provide after-sales service, including warranty and warranty According to that document, manufacturers should be obliged to provide services to customers, and with this strategic document, monopoly should be stopped from now on.
Fars: It was recently announced that home appliance manufacturers have increased prices. What is your analysis of this price increase? Have the issues raised in relation to the protection of manufacturers and the extension of the ban on the import of home appliances caused some manufacturers to raise prices? Although The head of the protection organization stated that the producers are obliged to return the prices to the past, but such events cause the consumers to lose confidence. What is your opinion in this regard?
Saburi Deilami: This is definitely not the right behavior, such actions can not create mutual trust between people and producers. Of course the Ministry صمت He also did little in this regard, because before the implementation of price increases by some companies, this action should have been prevented by control and supervision.
I think that if a strategic document on home appliances is drafted firmly and firmly and a council is involved in the pricing of manufactured goods, such as competition, such abuse will also be prevented. Of course, I hope the recent price increase is not abusive. But in the strategic document should be defined that the pricing of goods should be based بهای It is over, while using more and more domestic parts manufacturers to supply parts can also be effective in controlling prices.
Fars: With the current production conditions, can we hope to be an exporter of home appliances in the future?
Saburi Deilami: Yes, we can. Considering the capacity of the markets of neighboring countries, if we improve our level in terms of quality and after-sales service, we can definitely be an exporter of home appliances to neighboring countries, and we will have significant export income from the export revenue of this sector.
Of course, achieving these goals, despite the efforts of manufacturers to improve the quality and quantity, requires the self-sacrifice of consumers, that is, at some point consumers instead of buying foreign goods to buy domestically produced goods of even lower quality to give producers the opportunity to upgrade Have the quality of their products in the specified period in the strategic document.
According to Fars, the audience of the “My Fars” system registered a subject entitled “Why did Iranian home appliances become more expensive after the import was stopped” and demanded that this issue be followed up.
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