TEHRAN–A total of 94 tourism-related projects are currently underway across the southwestern Khuzestan province, the provincial tourism chief has said.

A budget of 41 trillion rials ($137 million) has been channeled into the projects, Mohammad Hossein Arastuzadeh explained on Wednesday.

The projects are estimated to generate over 420 job opportunities upon their completion, the official added.

Hotels, eco-lodge units, tourist complexes, and tourist camps are part of the under-construction projects, he noted.

Khuzestan is home to three UNESCO World Heritage sites of Susa, Tchogha Zanbil, and Shushtar Historical Hydraulic System, yet it is a region of raw beauty where its visitors could spend weeks exploring. The province is also a cradle for handicrafts and arts whose crafters inherited from their preceding generations.

Lying at the head of the Persian Gulf and bordering Iraq on the west, Khuzestan was settled about 6000 BC by a people with affinities to the Sumerians, who came from the Zagros Mountains region. Urban centers appeared there contemporaneously with the first cities in Mesopotamia in the 4th millennium. Khuzestan, according to Encyclopedia Britannica, came to constitute the heart of the Elamite kingdom, with Susa as its capital.

ABU/AM