Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has tasked the country's Oil Ministry to launch a movement to support petrochemical industries in order to eliminate unemployment, Press TV reported.
Ahmadinejad urged the ministry to establish a committee for the movement to eliminate unemployment in the country within two years, IRNA reported.
The Iranian president made the comment in a ceremony held in the southern province of Khuzestan on Thursday to inaugurate several major projects at Mahshahr Special Economic and Petrochemical Zone.
Ahmadinejad unveiled eight projects, including the light polyethylene plant of Amir Kabir Petrochemical Company worth $310 million with an annual production capacity of 300,000, on the south of the economic zone, Fars news agency reported on Thursday.
The products of the light polyethylene plant of Amir Kabir Petrochemical Company will be used in agriculture sector.
The project has come into full swing despite foreign companies' refusal to continue cooperation in the project under the pretext of the sanctions imposed on Iran by the United States and the European Union.
Phosphoric Acid plant with the production capacity of 250,000 tons each year with an investment of over $16 million and Fajr 2 Steam and Power Plant with production capacity of about 630 MW of electrical power and 740 ton steam, with an investment of $280 million have also come on stream at the zone.
Four development projects, including the development plan of electricity and steam units of Mobin petrochemical plant in Assaluyeh (onshore installations of the South Pars gas field in southern part of Iran), the demonstration unit for converting methanol into propylene, as well as a methanol-to-propylene pilot plant and the launch of Vinyl Acetate Monomer pilot unit were also among the projects commissioned during Ahmadinejad's one-day visit to the southern province of Bushehr.
Meanwhile, the Iranian president lauded the latest achievements in the petrochemical industries, saying a revolution should take place in Iran so as to use the full capacities of the downstream oil industry.
He further stated that all the capacities and potentials in the Khuzestan province has yet to be realized in order to ratchet up domestic capabilities in the Islamic Republic.
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