Tehran, Moscow to Cooperate in Mining Sector
IRAN NEWS ECONOMIC DESK
TEHRAN – Iranian Mining Engineering Organization (IMEO) and Russian Export Center (REC) signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperating in engineering and mineral sectors.
In a ceremony held in Tehran, director of IMEO Mr. Taghi Nabaei and director of REC Mr. Pavel Bukhanov signed the deal for cooperation in mineral sector.
The REC is actually a holding, comprised of three companies which tries to expand exports to Iran and according to the existing data, the amount of Russia’s exports to Iran last year grew 31 percent comparing to the preceding year. Exim Bank of Russia is one of the subset of the REC and the affiliated companies of the center function under supervision of Russia’s industry and trade ministry.
Addressing the ceremony, Mr. Nabaei said according to the MoU, the ground for expanding cooperation between Iran and Russia is laid and both countries enjoy good potentials in mine and mineral sector.
He further said that IMEO has currently over real 41,000 members which are experts and skillful and it has 2,000 legal members with 15 specialized fields which are mostly companies active in the mine and mineral sector.
According to him, the central council and main headquarters of the organization determines operational programs for 31 provinces and it prepares the necessary policies.
Nabaei noted that the members of the organization enjoy having necessary capabilities for exploration activities and extractions from the depth by utilizing the modern technology and at the same time they have enough potentials to avoid sales of raw mineral materials.
He expressed his satisfaction over Russia’s capabilities regarding the advance mineral machineries, adding that the REC can help Iran in imports of industrial machinery for mine and mineral sectors.
He noted that everything is ready for link of Iran’s mine and mineral sector to their Russian counterparts in order to lay the ground for the future cooperation.
Meanwhile addressing the ceremony, head of developing mine and steel cooperation of the REC Mr. Alexi Kimov, for his part, said signing the MoU with IMEO lays the ground for expanding cooperation in the mine and mineral industries and it is predicted that it would play an effective role in the future cooperation between both states.
On the sidelines of the ceremony, Bukhanov told reporters that Russian government supports the programs of the REC and in case Russian made equipment is used, the government and Russian banks would grant loan facilities. He added there is a list, comprised of 2500 items, which can use Russian government’s facilities.
According to the statistics of Russia’s Customs Administration, the trade volume of Iran and Russia stood at $1.74b in 2018 as Russia’s exports to Iran were some $1.2b while Iran exported only goods worth $533m while the trade between both countries in 2017 was $1.7 and Russia’s exports to Iran were some $1.3b.
