Vahid Hosseini, Managing Director of Tehran Air Quality Control Company, made the announcement explaining that the cooperation agreement aimed at boosting collaboration on scientific, educational and equipment sectors to contain the capital’s air pollution for a period of four years.
He noted that the deal would be implemented by Tehran Air Quality Control Company as a subsidiary of Tehran Municipality as well as JICA who represent the Japanese side.
The official recalled that JICA has carried out various environmental projects in developing countries like Iran one instance being the attempt to revive Lake Urmia.
“The present agreement was developed over two years,” highlighted Hosseini asserting that “accordingly, Iranian and Japanese experts will seek to resolve the challenge by initially identifying primary sources of pollution and then taking steps to eliminate them.
The official later explained that the Iranian side will pay nothing for the project while the Japanese government will pay seven million dollars to JICA in exchange for nothing.
He later pointed to transfer of equipment and know-how to Iran saying “government of Japan has approved of supplying equipment to Iran and air analysis equipment worth 13 million dollars will arrive under a separate deal between Tehran Municipality and the Japanese government.”
Also at the MoU-signing ceremony, President of JICA office in Iran, Yukiharu Kobayashi, said “under terms of the agreement, Japanese experts will provide Iranian experts with knowledge and experience on reducing air pollution.”
In recent years, Air pollution has tuned into a major challenge to the Iranian government who has used various strategies to curb the challenge like implementing odd-even scheme under which cars with license plates ending in odd numbers will be kept indoors and vice versa.
Nevertheless, these measures were not enough to tackle the issue and the country has decided to form a deal with a foreign company to resolve the problem.
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