_enhanced.jpg)
The head of the East Azerbaijan Industry, Mine, and Trade Organization, Sabir Parnian, reported that 24 trillion tomans worth of capital was extracted from the province last year.
According to Fars News Agency, during a meeting held in Tabriz, the head of the East Azerbaijan province’s SMT Organization stated that 24 trillion tomans in revenue from the Varzeqan copper mine had been extracted from the province in raw form.
Parnian emphasized the need to prevent the outflow of capital from the province and stated that the economic potential of the private sector must be activated.
He also noted that East Azerbaijan province has some of the richest mining reserves in the country, but these reserves are being extracted in raw form. “If a copper production complex is completed, we could become one of the country’s economic hubs,” he added.
The reserves from the Sungun copper mine in Varzeqan, East Azerbaijan, are sent to Kerman province to be converted into pure copper. Former governor of East Azerbaijan, Mohammad Reza Purmohammadi, had previously reported that “50 billion tomans worth of copper concentrate is sent to Kerman every day.”
After the initial stages of mineral concentration at the Sungun copper mine, the material is sent to Kerman province for smelting and refining into pure copper. The current governor of East Azerbaijan had also criticized the lack of mineral beneficiation plants in the province.
Varzeqan is located in the Qaradağ region of Iranian Azerbaijan. Despite the region's rich underground resources, it remains one of the poorest cities in the country, and its residents' standard of living is low, a situation often criticized by activists of the Azerbaijani national movement.
Link to the original text in Turkish on the Azerbaijani section of Voice of America:
İran Azərbaycanından mis mineralının xam şəkildə çıxarılması tənqidlərə səbəb olub