BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

21/05/2007

Belarus, Iran ready to enhance political, trade, economic contacts.

MINSK, May 21 (Itar-Tass) -- The presidents of Belarus and Iran, Alexander Lukashenko and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, signed a joint communique on Monday.

In the document, the parties declared their readiness to expand bilateral relations in the political, trade and economic areas on the basis of equality and respect for mutual interests.

The parties expressed satisfaction with the agreement on the joint development of the Jofeir oil deposit in the south of Iran, the communique runs.

The parties pointed to the need to expand interaction in oil and gas sectors, to set up oil refineries, to develop jointly oil and gas deposits, and to build underground storages of natural gas in Iran, the communique says.

Belarus and Iran also noted the importance of implementing joint projects for the construction of thermal and hydro power plans, industrial facilities for manufacturing petrochemical, medical and other products and equipment in Belarus, the document says.

Moreover, the two presidents reiterated the readiness to do their utmost to develop bilateral interaction in the sphere of industrial and technological cooperation, specifically to create joint machine-building companies, the document runs.

The two countries decided to balance bilateral trade and increase its annual volume to 500 million U.S. dollars in the near future.

With this in mind, the parties declared the need to support businessmen of the two countries and to establish a basis for the joint participation in industrial projects in third countries.

On the results of the talks, the two countries signed agreements on cooperation in the field of education, and between the National Bank of Belarus and the Central Bank of Iran.

Iranian President Ahmadinejad assessed the reached agreements as "very important."

Source:

http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=11549771&PageNum=0