Government departments from Iran and China have started detailed talks to reach concrete investment and cooperation agreements after a 25-year partnership between the two countries formally went into effect earlier this week, says Iran’s finance minister Ehsan Khandouzi.
“Now each (Iranian) ministry … has started talks related to its field of activity with the Chinese side so that they can reach contracts,” Khandouzi was quoted as saying by the Iranian parliament’s news service ICANA on Sunday.
“It will be after the start of these contracts that the investment and growth we have in mind would effectively take place,” he said.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi signed final documents to announce the start of the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between the two countries on Friday.
The deal allows China to commit to hundreds of billions of dollars in investment in various sectors of the Iranian economy. Iran, in return, will commit to provide China with a stable supply of energy over the next 25 years.
Khandouzi said that Amir-Abdollahian’s visit to China earlier this week had prepared the ground for start of detailed talks on the 25-year deal between the two countries.
He said, however, that no binding contracts had been reached between Iran and China under the strategic partnership agreement as he insisted that Amir-Abdollahian’s announcement on the start of the implementation phase of deal was simply a formality.
The minister said, however, that Iran’s ministries of trade, energy and oil, among others, had already started detailed talks with Chinese counterparts to reach concrete investment and cooperation agreements under the 25-year deal.