Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan.18
By Fatih Karimov - Trend:
Renowned European mining companies have returned to Iran, IRNA quoted Mehdi Karbasian, the director of the Iranian Mines and Mining Industries Development and Renovation Organization (IMIDRO), as saying on January 18.
"The reports during the past four months indicate that a promising future awaits Iran's mining sector," he added.
"In addition to giant European mining companies, a number of companies from China, India, and Australia have come back to Iran's market," Karbasian said.
In December 2013, an Iranian economy ministry official said the mining sector of Iran requires $400 billion to meet objectives of the Fifth Five-Year National Development Plan (2010-2015).
"The private sector, banks, and the capital market will secure some 60 percent of the necessary fund, and 40 percent will be provided through foreign sources," Abolfazl Poudehi, official at the Iranian economy ministry, stated.
Directors of the largest private-funded union of employers in France will travel to Tehran in February 2014 to explore the ways to invest in different fields of economy in Iran.
Thierry Courtaigne, the director general and the vice president of the Mouvement des Entreprises de France (MEDEF), or the Movement of the Enterprises of France, made the statement in a meeting with the director of the Iranian Mines and Mining Industries Development and Renovation Organization (IMIDRO) in Tehran in December 2013.
Managers of about 50 French companies are scheduled to meet with Iranian officials in Tehran on February 4-5, Courtaigne said.
"We want to resume relations with Iran," the MEDEF director general said, adding, "We have already met with the French ambassador to Tehran, a number of French investors, as well as the chairman of the Iran-France Joint Chamber of Commerce regarding the French delegation's travel to Iran."
The IMIDRO director, Mehdi Karbasian, said for his part that Iran's mining sector provides unlimited opportunities for foreign investors. "So, French investors should not be lagging behind their rivals."
Iran is among the 15 major mineral-rich countries of the world and exports its industrial and mineral products to 159 countries, including Iraq, China, the United Arab Emirates, India, and Afghanistan.