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Marzieh Shahdaei told that the production capacity of petrochemical products currently stands at 65 million tons and this figure will is expected to 130 million tons by 2020.

Based on the plans for the petrochemical industry, she added, Iran's annual exports of petrochemical products should reach 65 million tons by 2020.

National Petrochemical Company (NPC) welcomes domestic and foreign investment in the petrochemical sector, said Shahdaei, who is also the managing director of NPC.

She added that huge resources of energy, big domestic market, Iran's geopolitical position and a 20-year tax exemption are among the advantages of investment in Iran.

Given the advances in this field, Iran is determined to move forward to produce more value-added products, she said.

Shahdaei cited the light and heavy poly-ethylene project of Lorestan, petchem plants of Orumieh and Mahabad and urea production unit of Marvdasht as the projects recently inaugurated in the petrochemical sector. She added that Entekhab poly-styrene project as well as a sector of West Ethylene Pipeline and Karoun, Kurdestan and Pardis petchem projects will be launched by mid-March 2017.

Meanwhile, Director of Production Control at NPC Alimohammad Bosaqzadeh said on Saturday that Iran has doubled the export of petrochemicals to markets in Europe during March 20-October 21 this year.

He said NPC's strategy is to keep the price of products in line with those in the Middle East and Far East markets so as to reduce fluctuations.

He said Far Eastern countries like China and India are Iran's top petrochemical customers.

Iran is currently exporting petrochemicals to European destinations such as Germany, Hungary and the UK.

The output of Iranian petrochemical plants stood at 28.7 million tons in the seven months to October 21, he added.

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Hamid Kargar, the head of Iran's National Carpet Center, was quoted by Press TV as saying that exports of Persian carpets to the US used to be undertaken from Germany.

He said Iran had shipped a cargo of carpets to Los Angeles from Hamburg following the removal of sanctions in January.

The cargo weighed above 1,000 tons and had a total value of about $37 million, he added.

He pointed out that during the months from January 20-February 18, 2017, Iran will export carpets directly from its own ports.

Kargar said Iran used to export Persian carpets — globally known as one of the oldest and most valuable oriental handicrafts — valued at $80 million to the US. He added that the sanctions, however, brought the exports to the world's largest buyer to zero in 2010.

He added that Iran had exported handmade carpets worth $134 million, or 2,330 tons, to 80 countries between March and September this year.

Exports over the period, he underlined, showed an increase of 18 percent in value and 11 percent in weight against the figure for the same period last year.

Kargar also said Iran's Ministry of Industry, Mine and Trade was seeking global registration of the designs of Persian carpets, stressing that this is meant to prevent rivals such as India and Pakistan from copying Iranian designs.

The official said Iran has a total of 40 carpet designs that each belong to a different geographical regions of the country. He added that 29 of those designs have been internationally registered in the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) over the past two years.

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