In an interview with Mizan,  referring to the government’s decision to increase the price of electricity for industrial units that have more than 2 megawatts of electricity consumption, Abolfazl Roghani said, “The government’s decision to increase electricity tariffs will lead to a multiplication  of the increase in energy costs. Eventually, with the final price increase, the consumer will suffer.”

Stating that in the recent years, production units have not benefited from the increase in the cost of energy carriers, the head of the Industries Commission of the Iranian Chamber of Commerce clarified, “According to the ninth and tenth Cabinet, it was supposed to pay 11 thousand billion Tomans to the industrial sector for the support of production from the implementation of the Targeted Subsidy Plan, but later this figure was reduced to 6 thousand billion Tomans, and despite the increase in fuel costs, no assistance was provided to the production sector and many industrial units faced accumulation losses or reduced profits”.

“Increasing energy carriers without the necessary infrastructure is nothing more than shutting down and raising prices for consumers,” he said, “The private sector has no problem with realizing energy carriers, but these price changes must be taken into account in the final pricing of goods, and mandatory prices for sale can no longer be expected.”

The head of the Industries Commission of the Iranian Chamber of Commerce stated, “The 3.5-fold increase in price varies depending on the amount of electricity used by the industrial unit, and it is not possible to estimate the exact increase in the cost price of the goods”.

He added: “80% of the country’s gross income is related to large industrial units and 89% of employment is related to small and medium industrial units. Increasing production costs in large units will also affect small units in a hierarchical manner.”

Roghani said, “Large industrial units will offset this increase in costs by exporting, but other units will face price increases in the distribution chain”.

The head of the Industries Commission of the Iranian Chamber of Commerce stated, “Increasing government revenues by putting pressure on the industrial sector will create many problems for production units, and other measures such as improving the business environment can benefit the government.”