TEHRAN- The number of foreign exhibitors has increased 21 percent in the 11th International Exhibition of Plastics, Rubber, Machinery and Equipment of Iran (Iran Plast 2017) from the previous edition of the event, Iran’s National Petrochemical Company (NPC) Managing Director Marziyeh Shahdaei announced in a press conference on Monday.

She put the number of foreigners to attend this year’s exhibition at 524 and the number of Iranian participants at 600 with 39 percent growth from the figure of past year.

The official also said that the number of Iran Plast foreign participants has risen 100 percent from the ninth edition, i.e. in the post-sanction era.

The event, which will be held at the Tehran Permanent International Fairgrounds from September 24 to 27, is one of the most important industrial exhibitions in Iran and one of the most significant plastic exhibitions in the Middle East, the NPC managing director highlighted.

Companies from Germany, China, India, Cyprus, Taiwan, France, Italy, South Korea, Finland, Switzerland, Austria, Serbia, Luxembourg, Belgium, Thailand, Czech Republic, Greece, Denmark, the Netherlands, Spain, United Arab Emirates, Japan and Turkey will showcase their latest products and achievements in plastics and rubber industry during the four-day exhibit.

‘Post-sanction opportunity to boost foreign exhibitors’

Shahdaei said the NPC has taken the post-sanction opportunity to boost the number of foreign participants in Iran Plast and in this due the company has benefitted from a famous global organizer for organizing this exhibition to attract more foreign exhibitors.

She mentioned promoting exports of products and services, creating a more variable market, attracting foreign investment, receiving modern technology and the most important one increasing job creation in the petrochemical industry as the main objectives of the exhibition.

As the petrochemical industry itself does not create many jobs, completing the chain of value and developing the downstream industries can pave the way for promotion of job creation in this industry, the official commented.

‘Developing downstream industries to be 1st in region’

Elsewhere in her remarks, the NPC managing director put the country’s petrochemical capacity at 60 million tons and mentioned achieving the first place in the region in terms of the value of petrochemical products as the outlook plan of NPC.

“To reach this goal, we should develop our downstream sections and also set up the new units as some complementary chains”, she remarked.