<p dir="LTR"><span>Financial Tribune – More than 19,000 industrial projects launched by previous governments have been completed with more than 710 trillion rials ($19 billion) of investment under President Hassan Rouhani’s administration, which created 302,000 direct jobs, according to the Ministry of Industries, Mining and Trade.</span></p> <p dir="LTR"><span>Major investments in the petrochemical sector include 18.8 trillion rials ($500 million) in Bandar Imam Petrochemical Company’s development project as well as 15.5 trillion rials ($410 million) in a second production site for Fajr Petrochemical Company.</span></p> <p dir="LTR"><span>Major projects in the steel sector included a base metal production center for Chadormalu Mining and Industrial Company at a cost of 8.9 trillion rials ($235 million) and development projects in Khorasan Steel Complex and South Kaveh Steel Company with investments of 7.2 trillion rials ($191 million) and 6.6 trillion rials ($174 million) respectively.</span></p> <p dir="LTR"><span>An aggregate of 26 trillion rials ($693 million) worth of investments were made in the launch of paper production factories across the country.</span></p> <p dir="LTR"><span>The latest data released by the Central Bank of Iran show ‘industry’ and ‘mining’ sectors grew 5.8% and 0.2% respectively during the nine months of the last Iranian year.</span></p>