TEHRAN – Iran will begin manufacturing Romanian tractors in its northwestern city of Tabriz within the next two months, an official with the Romanian Embassy in Tehran said here on Tuesday.

Some 85 percent of the parts of the tractors will be imported from Romania and the rest will be manufactured in Iran, ISNA quoted the economic advisor of the Romanian Embassy in Tehran as saying.

The official who was addressing a group of part producers at a meeting in the Chamber of Commerce of Mashhad, the capital city of Khorasan Razavi Province, added that the measure would result in further expansion of economic cooperation between Romania and the part producers of this northeastern Iranian province.

He further referred to the growth in the trade exchanges between Iran and the Eastern European nation and said that trade volume between the two countries increased from $70 million in 2004 to $193 million and $174 million respectively in 2005 and the first seven months of 2006.

For his part, chairman of the Chamber of Commerce of Mashhad maintained that, Afghanistan, located on the border with Khorasan Province is a hungry untapped market for Romanian products in particular, Romanian tractors and other farm machineries.