Development of Agribusiness Enterprises - Asian Productivity ...

Food Processing Plants
Food processing plants operating in the Islamic Republic of Iran fall within the
following three categories:
C Plants operating under acceptable standards and practices. These are owned and
operated by able entrepreneurs, and their products comply with national and
international standards and requirements. However, since most of these plants have
been operating for more than 15 years, some need to be renovated. In particular, the
equipment in many of the plants needs to be modernized and upgraded in order to
ensure that output meets international standards and quality requirements;
C Plants that can be assisted in undertaking renovation as well as encouraged to upgrade
the quality of their products in order to comply with international requirements and
standards; and
C Small-scale plants and workshops, which are mainly of two types:
(a) Workshops operating with government permits and which can be renovated and
assisted in complying with national standards and codes of practice, so that they
can adequately supply local demand. In most cases, they are not suited to
undertake export-oriented production because of their small size, limited output
and frequent inability to meet external quality requirements; and
(b) Unlicensed workshops, which need to be shut down or properly licensed to ensure
that they do not pose a hazard to the safety and health of consumers.
Based on the above categories, at the end of 1997, 2,100 industrial plants were engaged
in beverage and agri-food production. Of that total, 1,871 units were privately owned and
229 units were public operations, employing a total of 119,027 persons.
Also, from 1994 to 1998, 11,987 permits for establishing food industry units were
issued, of which 3,228 units received exploitation licenses and the remainder recorded a
physical growth rate of between 0 percent and 75 percent. Due to lack of funds, many of the
exploited units have since been closed.
FORECASTS OF FOOD INDUSTRY DEVELOPMENT BY 2001
In a recent survey conducted by the Ministry of Agriculture on 19 groups of
horticultural and field crops, extensive efforts were made to provide a panorama for future
development of agricultural processing industries and export promotion through the provision
of forecasts based on the steps detailed below.
The survey projected the situation of processing industries by the horizon year of 2021
within the categories of (a) accessible, (b) desirable, and (c) ideal, with the inclusion of
estimates related to capacity, number of required new units, value-added, employment
generation and foreign exchange earnings.
It should be noted that differences exist in the projections for the above categories with
regard to production levels and export capacities of certain agricultural commodities. The
forecast for the above categories is summarized below:
1. Accessible Category
In view of the anticipated production level in the accessible category of the abovementioned
crops in 2021 production (107 million mt), and taking into account the present
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