Addressing the inaugural ceremony of the 9th Oil, Gas, Petrochemical Exhibition here at Tehran International Fairground on Monday, Zanganeh said, "If we work properly, we would be able to address domestic demand, while partially meeting the demand of the Persian Gulf littoral states and countries north of Iran."

To meet the target, the country is required to raise its contracting and building capacity three-fold through investment in the managerial and software sectors, he added.

Zanganeh said there are few contractors in Iran to be able to undertake a rls 2,000 billion project.

He said cautious estimates put the amount of investment required to be made in the national petroleum industry at dlrs 100 billion in the next decade.

Committing 60 percent of the investment would mean creation of at least dlrs six billion worth jobs for Iranians, the oil minister underlined.

He put the total amount of investment in the buy-back projects at about dlrs 20 billion in oil and gas sector, and dlrs 15 billion in refining and distribution of domestic resources

"The bulk of investment- about dlrs 10 billion to dlrs 12 billion- has been committed in the petrochemical industry," he added.

He said 40 to 45 percent of the capital investment has been generated from domestic resources.

The minister stressed close contacts between Iranian and foreign contractors to help promote national oil, gas and petrochemical industries.

Meanwhile, Secretary of the Exhibition Akbar Nematollahi told the audience that number of Iranian and foreign firms attending this year's exhibition had risen by 37 percent and 56 percent respectively.

Nematollahi said the participating companies are from 34 countries, including Germany, Italy, India, Thailand, Poland, Canada, the US, South Korea, China, Japan, India, Singapore, Turkey, Pakistan, Austria, Qatar, Syria, Indonesia, Turkmenistan and Denmark.

... Payvand News - 7/6/04 ... --