Hossein Pourfarzaneh said on Tuesday that Iran had executed a nine-year plan to localize the production of the engine parts of those two aircraft models.
Pourfarzaneh said Iranian engineering company Mapna had contributed to the government-sponsored program to manufacture jet engine parts, the website of the Iranian English-Language Press TV reported.
He said the program was mainly a result of efforts to offset the impacts of foreign sanctions on Iran’s civil aviation sector.
“Based on this (program) and through cooperation with Mapna, the reverse engineering and localization process of (manufacturing) engine parts of Boeing and Airbus airplanes was put into operation inside the country,” the official was quoted as saying by the Tasnim news agency.
“As a result, Iran has obtained the technology to manufacture critical parts of the aviation industry,” he added.
Iran came under an inclusive regime of American sanctions in 2018 after Washington unilaterally withdrew from an international deal on Iran’s nuclear program.
However, experts say the US sanctions have failed to reach their ultimate objective of forcing Iran into political and military concessions. They insist the bans have even created an opportunity for Iran to diversify its economy and to rely more on its domestic resources.
Reports in the past had pointed to Iran’s success in keeping its aviation fleet afloat despite the sanctions that ban the country’s access to foreign technology and spare parts.
The country has even provided aircraft maintenance services to foreign airlines with a report by Reuters news agency in April last year showing that Russia’s largest airline Aeroflot had sent one of its Western-made jets to Iran for repair.
SD/