TEHRAN: The manufacture of aircraft parts in Iran was among the topics negotiated between Iranian authorities and major planemakers who have secured contracts to supply passenger jets to the Islamic Republic. “However, there is a long road ahead before Iranian companies can efficiently produce jet parts,” Asghar Fakhrieh-Kashan, deputy minister of roads and urban development for international affairs, said. “To produce plane parts, we should first study our domestic capabilities. This is not feasible at the time being,” he was quoted as saying by IRNA on Tuesday. Following the lifting of sanctions in January 2016, as part of a nuclear accord Tehran clinched with world powers a year before, Iran signed deals with European planemakers Airbus and ATR as well as with American giant Boeing to purchase a total of 200 planes. So far, Iran has received three of the 100 jets it has ordered from Airbus–the first such delivery from a western plane manufacturer since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Besides supplying aircraft, the planemakers agreed to help Iran acquire parts manufacturing technology to be able to produce indigenous parts for its newly purchased airplanes and perhaps for those in other countries in the region and beyond. “We have introduced our tech companies to Airbus. Vice President for Science and Technology Sorena Sattari has been appointed as the head of a committee to assess the capacity of these tech firms in plane parts manufacturing and share the results with Airbus,” Fakhrieh-Kashan said. Sattari, who is President Hassan Rouhani’s top deputy for technology and science, has held a few meetings with Airbus in this regard.
