Tehran, July 8, IRNA - Tehran and Caracas will cooperate on designing 11 industrial townships as per an agreement signed beforehand, deputy Minister of Industries and Mines said on Sunday.

Mohammad Reza Notash said that executive works to design and build the industrial townships will be carried out according to a timetable.

He said that coordination was made with visiting Venezuelan Minister of Basic Industries and Mining Jose Salamat Khan to draw up the timetable for construction of townships for industrial plants.

Iran is making preparations to dispatch a delegation to Venezuela to follow up implementation of the agreements already signed between the two countries, he said.

Notash said that numerous Iranian small and medium size companies active in manufacturing machinery have launched good cooperation with Venezuela.

"Iran has economic and industrial cooperation with a large number of countries including Sudan, Tanzania, Ghana and Albania," he said, adding that the partnerships have also included technical and vocational training.

"If Venezuelan officials raise their needs in different economic and industrial sectors, we will make our efforts to help them." Salamat Khan, for his part, said that his country has problems in extracting and processing raw materials, adding that Venezuela enjoys one million hectares of forests, and needs expertise for optimum use of the forests.

He said that the two countries have increased joint investments in various sectors which will help speed up economic cooperation in the future.

... Payvand News - 7/9/07 ... --