NPC official calls for cooperation with private sector

The National Petrochemical Company plans to boost interaction with private sector companies to pave the way for the development of the petrochemical industry, a senior NPC official announced. Deputy managing director of the NPC Hasan Peivandi told Shana that the private sector was one of the main pillars of development in petrochemical sector adding rising cooperation between those petrochemical companies which have been ceded to private sector under the article 44 of the constitution with NPC can help to realization of the projected aims of production. He went on to say that boosting cooperation between petrochemical state-owned companies and private sector companies would be followed by economic development in the country, the official said. Paivandi continued, "Despite imposing the toughest sanctions against the country, Iran’s petrochemical sector has had great achievements in recent years including making revenue and in case of rising banking and government support, it could accelerate its speed towards progress." Earlier Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh had expressed hope the value of petrochemical products to be raised from 20 to 40 billion dollars per year. According to Zanganeh, petrochemical sector as a main ring in production chain could wane off the country from selling row materials. In addition to generating wealth, petrochemical sector can complete the chain of value in downstream activities, create jobs and lead to diversification in products, Zanganeh said. Iran’s petrochemical products are exported to different countries like China and Taiwan where they are changed into final and consumer products and come back to the country indicating there are great potentials for development of upstream activities at home. "During the first leap towards development from 1996 to 2006 the value of petrochemical products climbed from 1 billion to 20 billion dollars and in the second leap it is expected to double reaching 40 billion dollars," Zanganeh noted.