Export of PET bottle raw material banned

According to ISNA, by order of the Minister of Industry, Mine and Trade, the export of PET preform — the material used to produce bottles — was banned because of shortages and a steep rise in the price of bottles for domestic industry.

Mohammad Shariatmadari, Minister of Industry, Mine and Trade and head of the market regulation working group, wrote to Foroud Asgari, head of the Customs Administration, on the subject of the preform export ban: given the needs of PET bottle producers serving the milk, vegetable oil, beverage, juice, mineral water, detergent, dishwashing and hand-wash sectors, and in view of the shortage of PET preform used for bottle production, all customs offices should be instructed to prevent the export of PET preform by any exporter, whether manufacturer or trader.

The order followed a period in which the shortage of bottles for food-industry packaging — mineral and drinking water, vegetable oil, soft drinks and malt beverages — had become a serious problem and, according to producers in the sector, had pushed the related industries into crisis, leaving insufficient containers for packaging and market supply amid rising prices.

Food industries and other dependent sectors, as customers for these containers, faced the same difficulty. Earlier that year, the Director General of Food, Pharmaceutical and Health Industries at the ministry had written to the Consumer and Producer Protection Organisation calling for oversight to prevent preform and other plastic supplies being sold at marginal market prices by producers who buy their material through the commodity exchange.

A 360 percent increase in the price of PET per kilogram compared with the same period the previous year brought the matter back onto the agenda, and the export of bottle raw material was finally banned by direct ministerial order.