Iran’s steel production capacity has increased to 24 million tons making the country needless of importing the strategic product, Iranian Minister of Industry, Mines and Trade Mehdi Qazanfari announced on Tuesday, adding that Iran will soon become a major steel exporter. “We will become the world’s 8th steel producer and exporter by 2025,” the Iranian minister of industry, mines and trade said, addressing the inaugural ceremony of Khazar Steel Mill in the Northern Gilan province today. Qazanfari noted that the production capacity of Iran’s steel mills has now amounted to 24 million tons after the inauguration of Khazar Steel Mill today. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad inaugurated the Khazar Steel Mill in Rasht Industrial City earlier today. The mill has a capacity for the production of 700,000 tons of steel ingots per year. Iran’s private sector has invested a sum of 210 billion tomans ($84 million) in the Khazar Steel Mill. Earlier this month, Iranian Mines and Mining Industries Development and Renovation Organization (IMIDRO) announced that Iran plans to increase its steel output capacity to above 45 million tons soon despite the US-led western sanctions imposed against the Islamic Republic. According to the plan, the country’s steel production capacity will increase to 45.36 million tons by March 2015, IMIDRO said. IMIDRO has sought to implement steel projects to increase the country’s annual steel production capacity to 20 million tons in 2012 from 10 million tons in 2005, marking a 100 percent increase, it added. However, IMIDRO said that one of the fundamental problems of steel projects, which members of the Iranian Parliament’s Energy and Mining Commission are aware of, is procurement of the necessary financial resources for implementing them. Yet, IMIDRO underlined that it has managed to provide the needed financial resources and made 70% of progress in different provincial steel projects. Earlier this year, the World Steel Association (WSA) announced that Iran has become the largest steel producer in the Middle East and North Africa. Iran produced 14.463 million tons of crude steel in 2012, and was named the first largest producer of crude steel in the Middle-East and North Africa, WSA report said. The country\'s main steel mills are located in Isfahan and Khuzestan provinces.