Abuja – Mr Mohammed Nematzadeh, Iran’s Minister of Industry and Mines, on Friday in Abuja, said Iran was ready to partner with Nigeria in the development of the nation’s power sector.

Nematzadeh made the disclosure when he led a delegation on a courtesy visit to the Minister of State for Power, Alhaji Mohammed Wakil.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the visit is on the sidelines of the 5th session of the Nigeria-Iranian Joint Commission, which took place between June 19 and 20 in Abuja.

The Iranian minister said “as a fall out of the technical meeting between both ministries, Iran is ready to share its expertise in the power sector that made it self sufficient in power supply.

“We are here to help Nigeria to overcome the problem of insufficient electricity. We have an installed capacity of 70,000MW and over the years, we provided for a yearly increase of 5,000MW.”

He said the delegation, which comprised engineers, bankers, business men and government officials, had signified interest in all the three electricity value chain of Generation, Transmission and Distribution.

He added that there were Iranian companies that were desirous of collaborating with Nigerian investors to produce switch gears, transformers, cables and other electrical materials.

Responding, Wakil commended the delegation for the visit and expressed Federal Government’s readiness to partner with Iran in the development of the power sector.

He stressed the need for the delegation to provide technical expertise in all areas, including power generation through gas-turbine, coal, wind and others, in line with international best practice.

“Iran has an impressive record of 70,000MW for a population of 74 million and I think this is worthy of emulation,” he said.

Wakil said Nigeria, in the spirit of Non-Aligned Movement, would be ready to accept collaborative efforts from Iran.

The Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Dr Godknows Igali, appealed to Iranian financials to consider proposal for joint ventures with Nigerian consortium of companies in accessing fresh funds to reinvest in power sector.

“I can tell you that the distribution and generation companies, even those producing embedded power, will want to go into partnership as many of them are interested in long term financing.”

– NAN