TEHRAN – Head of Iran’s Securities and Exchange Organization (SEO) has said the country’s refining industry requires $30 billion of investment for completing semi-finished projects and the capital market is the best place to provide this funding.

Speaking in an online meeting with the heads of the country’s major companies active in the mentioned industry on Sunday, Mohammad-Ali Dehqan Dehnavi said the stock market can provide solutions to finance petrochemical companies and increase investment in this area.

He mentioned forming expert desks as a productive way for discussing and resolving the issues of various industrial sectors and noted that SEO is seeking to establish expert desks for all the industrial sectors active in the stock market.

He pointed to the holding of the first meeting of the industry desk in SEO and added that in this meeting, which was dedicated to review the issues of the refining industry, the existing problems, obstacles, and challenges in this area were addressed and some solutions were proposed.

Dehnavi said that the refining industry accounts for an important part of the capital market and added: “We must use the capital market as a platform to finance projects in this industry and increase investment.”

“We believe that the capacities of the capital market can be put alongside the potentials of the industrial sectors to facilitate development of those sectors,” he stressed.

The official further noted that policies and regulations affect the value of people’s assets in the capital market and the legislators should not make decisions without considering the interests of small shareholders.

Increasing the capital of companies, issuing bonds, forming funds for special projects are some of the ways through which the capital market can help finance projects in various industrial sectors, Dehnavi said.

EF/MA