TEHRAN – Iranian Energy Minister Reza Ardakanian and his Russian counterpart Alexander Novak met in Moscow on Thursday and stressed expansion of ties in all areas, IRNA reported.

As reported, the two sides followed up on the agreements made in different fields of energy, industry, agriculture and banking during the 15th Iran-Russia Joint Economic Committee meeting.

Earlier this week, Ardakanian had announced that as the chair of the two countries’ joint economic committee he was heading a delegation to visit Moscow in order to follow up on the issue of Russia’s allocation of $5 billion of loan for implementation of development projects in Iran.

As previously approved by the Iranian parliament, the government was allowed to receive $5 billion in loans from Russia for development projects.

The news of Russia providing a $5 billion loan to Iran for joint infrastructure projects first came in October 2015 when Novak traveled to Tehran.

According to Ardakanian, the mentioned fund was going to be allocated for construction a 1400 megawatts (MW) power plant in the southern Hormozgan province, and also for electrification of Garmsar-Inche Boroun railway that links the city of Garmsar, in north of the Iranian capital Tehran, with the Iranian city of Inche-Boroun, on the border with Turkmenistan.

The official also noted that the ministry has also been negotiating for determining the projects for which the rest of the $5 billion fund should be allocated and some projects have been approved in this regard.

Manufacturing of 2,000 passenger wagons for the country’s subways and also construction of a railway between the southeastern provinces of Sistan-Baluchestan and eastern province of South Khorasan are two of these new projects.

Iran and Russia signed eight memorandums of understanding (MOUs) in the 15th Iran-Russia Joint Economic Committee meeting which was wrapped up on June 17 in Isfahan.

EF/MA