TEHRAN -- In the past four years 41 contracts have been signed with domestic and foreign companies worth around 5.2 billion dollars for designing and providing equipment in accordance with the new plans of the Iranian petrochemical industry, the director general of the National Iranian Petrochemical Industry (NIPI)said on Monday.

During the same period 105 deals worth around 5,400 billion rials have also been signed with domestic contractors for construction and installation of equipment, the NIPI Director General Nematzadeh told a press conference on Monday.

He said the capacity of petrochemical plants have increased from 13 million tons in 1997 to 16 million tons this year.

He said there are more than ten important petrochemical projects nearing completion in the Imam Khomeini Port Special Economic Zone.

He predicted that with the completion of the projects under construction NIPI products will reach 35 million tons in year 2005.

He said 23 million tons of these products could be exported.

He noted that Iranian petrochemical export earnings would therefore reach 3 billion dollars and domestic sales revenue would amount to about 2 billion dollars.

The company has exported 370 million dollars of petrochemical products since the beginning of the current Iranian year (started March 21, 2002), and export earnings should reach 900 million dollars by the end of this year (March 20, 2003), Namatzadeh said.

Pointing to foreign investments in the petrochemical industry he mentioned the signing of three contracts with foreign investors for the production of polyethylene.

A trilateral deal worth around 400 million dollars has been signed between Iran, Sweden and Germany, for developing the Karoon Petrochemical project. Another 165 million dollar contract has been signed with the Netherlands for the construction of Laleh Petrochemical project and a 180 million deal has been signed with Germany for developing the Simorgh Petrochemical project.

The NIPC director general also called for the removal of red tape for attracting foreign investment and the speedy completion of the projects.