Iran, Malaysia to cooperate in cooperative sector

TEHRAN, Sep. 24 (MNA) – Iran’s deputy-minister of Welfare, Labor and Cooperatives and director-general of Malaysian Ministry of Commerce have talked ways to expand ties in cooperative sector. Seyed Hamid Kalantari and Elias Haji Ahmed met in Putrajaya, Malaysian de facto capital. Kalantari emphasized that both countries should work to expand bilateral relations and to keep its current level. He provided details of Iran’s cooperative sector. “More than 105,000 cooperative ventures are active in different fields including agriculture, housing, industry and consumption, with 11 million people as members of these cooperatives,” Kalantari added. Iran’s ambassador to Kuala Lumpur Mohammad Jalal Firouzi also attended the meeting. Kalantari also added that with devising new plans to allot shares of public sector in private sector, now “46 million people have these shares; cooperatives initially sought to boost privatization,” he said. Kalantari pointed out that given changes in Iran’s and Malaysian cooperative sectors, a general reassessment of some of memoranda of understanding. “the 25 per cent quota of the cooperative sector in Iranian economy provisioned by the Fifth Development Plan has not yet been realized, and requires another 5 years to achieve the status,” he asserted. “With the role of the sector in GDP, we see rarely had they a significant place in GDP, and to improve the place, good planning and management practices were necessary,” said Kalantari. However, he admitted that it had not been the case, which he attributed to the lack of sources providing the capital such as the Central Bank and National Development Fund. “Recently, the Iranian parliament has reviewed the Amendment to Cooperatives Law; Parliament’s Center for Research are examining the Law to prepare it as a more coherent body constituting an Act,” he said. Elias Ahmed said that his country welcomed cooperation with the Islamic Republic of Iran to “exploit the potentials of both countries in cooperatives sector.”