Iran will build two 300- and 500-megawatt thermal power plants in Sri Lanka, Iranian Energy Minister Parviz Fattah has said.
Speaking to reporters after a meeting with his Sri Lankan counterpart W D J Seneviratne, Fattah said that an agreement on construction of the power plants would be signed by the two sides this week.
He said Sri Lanka has been keen to bolster cooperation with Iran in the energy field, adding that "further talks with Sri Lanka on the subject of power plant construction will be held if the issue of the country's use of the Iranian forex credit is settled."
He noted that a Sri Lankan delegation had visited Iran's power plants and thereby became familiar with the capabilities of Iranian experts, and said an Iranian expert delegation would pay a visit to Sri Lanka to discuss cooperation in the field of hydro-electric power.
Fattah said that a number of Sri Lankan experts, under the agreement, would be trained in Iran.
Meanwhile, Iran-Sri Lanka economic interactions, regarding the average price of oil in the last two years, were evaluated as much as 400 million dollars.
Non-oil economic interactions, not including tea, are evaluated as much as 30 million dollars, Iran's minister of mining and industry, Alireza Tahmasebi, said.
Tea adds another 20 million dollars, he said.
Tahmasebi expressed hope that Iran and Sri Lanka would enhance economic ties especially in the export of technical services.
He also named, building of cement making, car manufacturing and steel factories and transferring science and technology in discovery and exploitation of mines by Iranian experts as the promised terms to Sri Lanka by the Iranian side.
For his part, Sri Lanka's minister of industry also asserted on the enhancement of Iran-Sri Lanka industrial ties.
"Iran's industry possesses a good level of technology and we demand Iran's cooperation in the fields of automobiles, agriculture, cement producing factories, trucks and tractor manufacturing factories, discovery of iron mines and exploitations," he said.
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