Iran’s Leading Carmaker Downplays Sanctions

Senior officials of Iran’s leading carmaker, the Iran-Khodro Company (IKCO), said the company is fully ready to supply spare parts for its products in case it comes under sanction by Peugeot.

Speaking to reporters at a press conference, Behzad Zahiri, the CEO of IKCO Sales and After-Sales Service Company (ISACO) elaborated on the company’s plans and programs for this year, emphasizing customer satisfaction, increasing spare parts market share, broadening international markets and domestic sourcing of the network needs.

He also said that IKCO has not yet received any official announcement from Peugeot indicating a halt in their mutual cooperation.

ISACO spare part supply chalked up by 45 percent in 2011 compared to its previous year. The company is shooting for a 25% growth in supplying spare parts for IKCO cars this year.

Currently 10 to 15 percent of the spare parts needed for IKCO cars are supplied by Peugeot. In case Peugeot stops spare part supply, the required parts could be easily replaced by domestic suppliers or suppliers from other countries.

According to the ISACO CEO, taking advantage of domestic production capabilities forms ISACO’s main agenda. In this regard, outsourcing parts that can be or are right now produced domestically is impermissible.

Last year, 37 percent of the needed spare parts were globally outsourced and ISACO aims to reduce this amount to 23 percent.

Iraq, Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, Venezuela, Senegal, Algeria and Tunisia are the main target markets for ISACO, which intends to expand its international target market in 2011, exporting at least 10 million dollars worth of spare parts to global markets.