Iran wants to buy BelAZ trucks and Belarusian electric buses

BelAZ trucks at the Independence Day Parade in Minsk in 2017. Photo – Viktar Drachev/TASS/Forum

This was stated on Thursday by the Iranian Ambassador to Belarus at a meeting with journalists.

On May 31, Mostafa Oveisi said that Minsk and Tehran are currently negotiating the supply of BelAZ trucks and Belarusian electric buses to Iran.

The diplomat added that the negotiations on technical and financial aspects of the assembly of Iranian cars in Belarus had already started.

“We now have an agreement on assembling cars called Dena. At this stage, technical negotiations are under way, financial issues are also being discussed,” Oveysi said.

Interfax reports that in May 2016 ‘Iran Khodro’ and ‘Unison’ signed a memorandum of understanding, which became part of the strategy of the Iranian company to expand export markets. In the next five years, ‘Unison’ will produce 5 thousand cars.

“We hope to see a new generation of Iranian cars in Belarus before the end of 2018,” Oveysi said.

The ‘Unison’ company is located near Minsk. It was founded in 1996 as a Belarusian-British joint venture Ford Union, and in 2000, after changes in the legislation, Ford decided to leave the Belarusian market. In the same year the company was transformed into the JV “Unison”.

In 2006-2013, Iranian Samand vehicles were assembled in Belarus, also at ‘Unison’. However, the project was canceled because of the conflict of interests of the main shareholders. Within 7 years only about 2,000 cars were produced in Belarus.

 

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