MELBOURNE (Reuters) – Iran is seeking $50 billion in investment for its mining industries out to 2022 and has signed agreements with several European and Asian banks in the past few months, the country’s deputy mining minister said on Wednesday.
“We are in need of $50 billion for investment in the mining and mining industries of Iran,” Mehdi Karbasian told Reuters, speaking on the sidelines of the Imarc mining conference in Melbourne.
“In the past two months we have had agreements with South Korea, with Austria, with Denmark and it’s on the way for other countries like Germany,” Karbasian said, without identifying investors.
He said the plan was to attract capital across five years, but declined to say how much Iran had raised so far.
Karbasian said that the country was also looking for partnerships with unspecified foreign miners and manufacturers.
“We are trying our best to find the right investors…Mines and factories are some of the opportunities for foreign companies to invest.”