Iran to Raise Petchem Exports to $5bn by 2005

April 20, 1999 - 0:0
TEHRAN Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said here Monday that plans are underway to boost value of Iranian petrochemical products to $7.5 billion by the year 2005 of which over $5 billion will be exports. Addressing the seminar on Investment Opportunities in the Iranian Petrochemical Industry, opened here Monday, Zanganeh said that providing the preliminaries for the implementation of giant projects stipulated in these investments, is of prime importance.

To this end, he added, development of the existing oil and gas fields is of high priority, adding that exploitation of South Pars field with a capacity of 10 trillion cubic meters of natural gas is among these projects. The oil minister said that in an effort to provide a suitable atmosphere for the implementation of development projects in petrochemical industries, relevant laws for the attraction and support of foreign investments have been compiled and are being enforced.

Pointing to the relative advantages such as existence of immense hydrocarbon resources in Iran and proximity of the country to large oil and gas resources in the Persian Gulf and Central Asia, he said development of special economic zones in the southern parts of the country are among priorities of the plan for the development of Iran's petrochemical industry. Another speaker of the session, Deputy Oil Minister and Managing Director of National Iranian Petrochemical Company Mohammad Reza Nematzadeh said despite a 9-percent increase in volume of petrochemical exports, the hard currency revenue in this sector dropped to $460 million in 1998 from $560 million in 1997 due to the recession in world market.

The revenue in 1989 was $29 million. He said 18 percent of petrochemical products are exported to India, 10 percent to the Middle East, about 16 percent to the Far East, 6 percent to Europe, 15 percent to China and 13 percent to the Southeast Ssian countries.