China’s economic involvement with Iran is deepening with the announcement that Chinese companies plan to invest in a tram project in Iran’s fifth largest city, Tabriz.
The new mass transit system will carry commuters at speeds of up to 80km/h and will replace 50 buses and 200 taxis while lowering overall transport costs, a Chinese promoter of the scheme said on Sunday, reported Iran’s Fars News Agency (FNA).
"The Tabriz tram will have the highest standards in terms of safety, comfort, beauty, speed and quality," said the senior advisor of China’s CT Group Company, FNA reported.
The announcement followed last week’s news that Chinese investors are in talks to back a range of infrastructure developments in the Iranian province of Qom.
Chinese-Iranian cooperation has widened in recent months as relations between Iran and the West have improved as a result of the crises in Iraq and Syria.
Last month, Chinese officials held talks with their Iranian counterparts to finalize a deal on financing railway development projects in Iran, FNA reported.
"Our priority is the development of railway through attracting finance and recently we have reached an understanding with China, which is being finalized now," Deputy Director of Construction and Development of Infrastructures Transportation Company (CDITC) Seyed Massoud Nasr Azadani told FNA.
He, meantime, said that proper conditions are also ready for the Iranian companies to invest in building railway lines in the country.
