Business owners in industrial towns are soon to enjoy a 5-10 year tax-exemption program aimed at promoting domestic production, announced deputy head of the Iranian Small Industries and Industrial Parks Organization Gholamreza Soleimani. “The new tax holiday program will be enforced as of March 20, 2016 which marks the beginning of the new Iranian year,” the official was quoted by Forsat Emrooz newspaper as saying. He added that the new provision is an improved version of the annex that was added to the Direct Tax Exemption Act in 2003 based on which local manufacturers in industrial towns were to enjoy a partial tax holiday of 50%-100% for four to eight years. However, the incentive program was never fully executed. The revised version, Soleimani says, is endowed with better executive guarantees and extends the full tax exemption by five to ten years depending on the development level of industrial towns. The implementation of the so-called Subsidy Reform Program, increase in the price of raw materials and lack of government support have forced many small industries to shut down over the past few years.