Iran and Japan can have bilateral cooperation in Iran’s water and wastewater industry, Iranian deputy energy minister said on Saturday.
Sattar Mahmoudi was speaking at a conference in Tehran on preparing managers of water and wastewater companies to exploit Japan’s technology, ISNA reported.
“During the past decades, Japan has been Iran’s second biggest partner after Germany with regard to technology transfer,” he added.
“Iran is interested in cooperating with Japan in sectors such as intelligent networks management, measurement systems and reinforcing water utilities against earthquakes.”
Another keynote speaker at the conference said because of the large number of Iranian experts in this sector, Iran intends to target regional markets in cooperation with Japan in the near future.
Hamidreza Janbaz, managing director of Water and Wastewater Company, added that water desalination projects can be another avenue of collaboration with the East Asian country.
“As for Japan’s high-level technology, it can possibly be a part of the mega project of transferring water from the Persian Gulf to mostly dry central areas of Iran,” Janbaz said.
Referring to the fact that Japanese companies could not undertake water and wastewater projects in Iran for the past eight years largely due to the US-engineered sanctions against Iran’s financial and trade sectors, the official said a joint session between Iranian water and wastewater industry activists and their counterparts in Japan’s private sector will be held in the Iranian month ending March 19, 2016.
“According to projections, in the next few decades, water shortage will be the world’s main issue,” Mahmoudi said, adding that urban residents will account for a majority of Iran’s population by 2050, which means higher water demand.
Earlier this month, Energy Minister Hamid Chitchian held a meeting with the visiting State Secretary of Germany’s Ministry for Environment and Building Gunther Adler in which he called for more investment in the water sector.
Energy officials say nearly 3,000 water and wastewater projects nationwide are incomplete due to a lack of funds, according to energy officials.
In addition, Iran water and wastewater projects require $22 billion in investment, according to the National Water and Wastewater Engineering Company.
About 58% of wastewater in Iran flow back into the environment, despite the implementation of treatment projects nationwide.
