TEHRAN – National Iranian Oil Engineering and Construction Company (NIOEC) signed an agreement with two domestic companies namely Machine Sazi Arak and AzarAb Industries for cooperation on indigenizing the manufacturing of some equipment used in petrochemical industry.

The signing ceremony was participated by Industry, Mining and Trade Minister Reza Rahmani on Tuesday, IRIB reported.

Based on the agreement worth €60 million, the manufactured equipment will be supplied to Kian Petrochemical Company (in the southwestern province of Bushehr) and Dehloran Petrochemical Industries (in the western province of Ilam).

During the signing ceremony, Mehdi Sadeqi Niaraki, the deputy minister of industry, mining and trade, said that 18 petrochemical projects worth €60 billion are currently underway in Iran that 60 percent of their required equipment can be manufactured inside the country.

He said that 3,500 equipment and machinery manufacturing units are active in the country and over 2,000 industrial equipment and machinery have been already listed to be indigenized.

The official also announced that contracts worth €107 million have been recently signed for manufacturing equipment applied in the auto industry.

The current Iranian calendar year of 1398 (began on March 21) is named as the year of "Pickup in Production" by Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei.

The realization of this motto toward Iran’s self-reliance is in fact the only way to tackle the U.S. cruel sanctions on Iran’s economy.

To this end, Iranian government has put supporting domestic producers a top agenda in the current year.

Providing the required working capital for the production units and offering them facilities is one of the major measures being pursued by the government to support these units.

Abdolnaser Hemmati, the governor of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI), has specified providing of working capital for the production units as the major priority of the Iranian banks in the current year.

And industry minister has said that improving the efficiency of important factors in production and creating a movement for promoting domestic production are among the plans which the industry ministry is following to realize a sustainable domestic production.

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Photo: Iranian Industry, Mining and Trade Minister Reza Rahmani (C) in the signing ceremony of an agreement for indigenizing petchem equipment in Tehran on Tuesday