German Economy Minister Werner Mueller will lead a major trade delegation to Iran next week for a three-day visit, the German embassy said Sunday.
Mueller will head a delegation of some 40 officials from one of Iran's key world trade partners for a visit beginning October 1 to coincide with Tehran's international trade fair, the embassy said.
German engineering group Linde said earlier this month it had secured an order worth about €180 million ($158 million) to build the world's third-largest natural gas separation plant in Iran.
President Mohammad Khatami visited Germany earlier this year in the first such visit to the country by an
Iranian head of state since 1967.
The visit helped end a period of sour relations in the 1990s caused by the assassination of three Iranian Kurd opposition leaders in a Berlin restaurant in 1992, and the detention of German businessman Helmut Hofer for allegedly having sexual relations with a Muslim Iranian woman.
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder gave a hearty political boost to events during Khatami's visit by announcing a five-fold increase in German government guarantees for exports to Iran. – (AFP)
© Agence France Presse 2000
© 2000 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
