TEHRAN - An Iranian company has unveiled homemade polyurethane foam for use in automobile seats, an initiative that is expected to enable the country to cut back on nearly $450 million worth of imports per year.
The Iranian made foam was unveiled by SAIPA Azin, a subsidiary of Iran’s second largest carmaker SAIPA, in a ceremony in Tehran on Tuesday.
The company said it had mastered the technology to produce the special polyurethane foam under a partnership with Karun Petrochemical Company (KRNPC) as the supplier of the raw material needed for manufacturing the foam.
The KRNPC’s plant is located in southern Iranian port of Bandar Imam Khomeini. It is a leading supplier of the raw material needed for manufacturing various types of foams in Iran and in the West Asia region.
A report by the IRIB news said the company has supplied some 40 metric tons (mt) of its newly-developed KCS-20 product to SAIPA Azin for manufacturing car seat foams.
Mehdi Pazouki, a senior member of SAIPA’s managing board, said that Iran used to spend some $440 million per year to import nearly 200,000 mt of the raw material needed for polyurethane foam production.
Over the past years, Iran has supported industrial projects that seek to manufacture products whose imports into Iran are either costly or almost impossible because of American sanctions on the country.