Tehran – Iran will inaugurate a cement plant in Venezuela within the next few months, Iranian Mines and Mining Industries Development and Renovation Organization Managing Director Mehdi Karbasian said.

The plant will have a capacity to produce one million tons of cement per year, the Mehr News Agency quoted Karbasian as saying on Saturday.

In 2012, IMIDRO signed an agreement to establish the cement plant in Venezuela and started the work, but the construction operations were halted due to budget deficit, he noted.

Iran exported around 18 million tons of cement to 24 countries, including Iraq, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Pakistan, Qatar, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Georgia, Oman, India, and China in the previous Iranian calendar year, which ended on March 20, 2014.

The country ranked first in the Middle East and third in the world in terms of cement exports.