TEHRAN – Iranian Science Minister Mohammad Ali Zolfigol in a meeting with his Venezuelan counterpart Gabriela Servilia Jimenez announced readiness to establish a science and technology park in Venezuela.

With 49 science and technology parks and 7,500 technological companies and numerous knowledge-based companies, Iran has valuable experiences in the field of science and technology and is ready to help Venezuela in establishing a science and technology park, Zolfigol said in the meeting in Tehran on Tuesday.

“We must try and plan to promote the scientific and technological cooperation between Iran and Venezuela to the same level as the political relations,” he added.

Iran is not dependent on the East and the West and can interact and cooperate with different countries of the world by its will, he noted, adding, forming a joint committee can help operationalize the will to increase scientific cooperation between the two countries.

Jimenez also for her part stated that the two countries are serious to increase scientific and technological cooperation, and a road map for the development of cooperation should be drawn.

Venezuela also attaches great importance to science and technology, and soon the first industrial science and technology park will be opened, she added.

“We believe that science should be in the service of philanthropy, pacifism, environmental protection, and the development of humanity, and we believe that Iran also shares common ground,” she also said.

At the end of this meeting, a memorandum of understanding on scientific and technological cooperation between the two countries was signed.

In September, more than 82 knowledge-based firms attended an exhibition in Caracas with the aim of exchanging experiences and holding meetings.

Some 200 companies attended this event and 60 cooperation contracts were signed. We tried to provide a field for interaction and synergy between companies, she said.

Nicolás Maduro, the president of Venezuela, said in September that today, Iran is an exemplary country and a country of progress, production, knowledge, and production of products.

Knowledge-based ecosystem

Over the past year, in order to realize a resilient and knowledge-based economy, the Vice Presidency for Science and Technology has implemented a series of activities to further develop the ecosystem of innovation and technology in the country.

The two countries are serious to increase scientific and technological cooperation.The Vice Presidency for Science and Technology was founded in 2006 as one of the sub-sets of the government with the slogan of moving from an oil-based economy to a knowledge-based one, aiming at increasing technological capabilities and innovation in order to generate wealth from the knowledge and improve people’s quality of life.

So, over 7,000 knowledge-based and 1,600 creative companies have so far been registered and started operations.

The fields of biotechnology, agriculture, food industries, chemical technologies aircraft maintenance, steel, gas, pharmaceuticals, medical equipment and medicine, oil, electronics and telecommunications, information technology, and computer software are among the sectors that researchers in technology companies are working in.

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei designated the current Iranian year (March 2022-March 2023) as “The Year of Production: Knowledge-Based and Job-Creating”. Strengthening knowledge-based companies are on the agenda, raising hope for reducing obstacles on the path to development.

In this regard, a strategic technology development headquarters was formed and 362,000 technological projects and 154 commercialization projects were supported, in addition to the inauguration of 23 national mega projects.

Moreover, in the field of innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem development, 65 creative houses and innovation centers, and 30 specialized accelerators have been established with the aim of empowering and strengthening the export capacity of knowledge-based, creative, and technological companies.

FB/MG