Iran, China keen to expand bilateral ties in communication fields

Tehran and Beijing are seeking to further widen mutual cooperation in information and communication fields. Iran's Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Minister Mohammad Hassan Nami and his Chinese counterpart Miao Wei, in a meeting in Beijing on Monday, underlined the need for bolstering and reinvigorating mutual cooperation between Tehran and Beijing in communication field. The Islamic Republic and China hold similar views in the field of IT, which can be used as a platform for mutual cooperation, the Iranian minister said. The Iranian minister reiterated that both Iran and China share concerns regarding a number of issues, including the Internet. Underlining Iran’s belief that a “clean internet” should be established across the world to protect the institution of the family as the key nucleus of society, Nami said the Chinese have the same concern as well, “and the joint perspective of Iran and China can serve as a good basis for more collaboration in this field.” Miao, for his part, pointed to the considerable expansion of Iran-China ties in recent years in a variety of fields, including information technology, and described Iran as a nation with a long history in science. Trade between Iran and China in the past year was estimated at $45bln. Iran is currently China's third largest supplier of crude, providing Beijing with roughly 12 percent of its total annual oil consumption. According to the figures released by China's General Administration of Customs in January, China's crude oil imports from Iran reached 2.5 million tons (mt) in December 2012, up 43 percent from November. The official data showed that China's daily crude imports from Iran in December 2012 also rose 3.6 percent compared to December 2011. It marks China's biggest crude import from Iran since it won a renewal of exemption from the United States' oil embargo against Iran.