TEHRAN – The head of the Iran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture (ICCIMA) Energy Committee has said the country’s private sector is ready to invest up to $12 in the country’s gas sector in order to mitigate supply and demand imbalance in the cold season, the ICCIMA portal reported.

“If the government guarantees, the private sector is ready to invest 10-12 billion dollars to solve the gas imbalance in the cold season,” Arash Najafi said in a press conference on Monday.

“Despite the fact that in the past two or three years, the private sector has repeatedly warned the government about the damage caused by gas and electricity imbalance, energy imbalance is still an important issue of the country's economy,” Najafi said.

According to the official, representatives of the private sector are worried that, like the previous years, production units are going to face gas shortages in the current year’s cold season as well, and their activities will be limited due to restrictions on gas supply, as a result, the country will face an imbalance in the production of strategic products like petrochemicals, steel, and cement, which will cause serious damage to the national economy and the country's foreign currency income.

EF/MA