Iranian president's special envoy, Amir-Hossein Zamaninia, on Friday submitted Dutch Minister of Economic Affairs, Henk Kamp, a message from President Hassan Rouhani, who invited Dutch Prime Minister, Mark Rutte, to attend the 3rd Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) Summit, due to be held in Tehran in November.
'Presence of the Netherlands in the meeting as an observer is of high significance and I hope that it will use the opportunity available to promote mutual ties in various domains,' said Zamaninia, who is also Deputy Oil Minister for International and Commercial Affairs.
He underlined the need for promotion of mutual ties in various fields.
The Dutch Minister of Economic Affairs in turn thanked Iran for the invitation and congratulated Tehran on recent Iran-G5+1 agreement.
He said the Netherlands will be represented in the GECF Summit by a top-ranking delegation.
He hoped for close cooperation between Iran and the Netherlands in the fields of Energy as well as development of ports, water management, agriculture and environment protection.
The Gas Exporting Countries Forum has 18 main and observer members and its permanent secretariat is located in Qatar’s capital city, Doha. Iran, Russia, Qatar, Algeria, Bolivia, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Libya, Nigeria, Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela, Peru, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman are main members of the GECF.
The GECF member states have a share of 42 percent in global gas production, 70 percent in global gas reserves, 40 percent in natural gas transmission through pipeline, and 65 percent in the world’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) trade.
At present, seasoned Iranian diplomat, Mohammad Hossein Adeli, is secretary general of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum. He was elected by the energy ministers of the GECF member states as the second secretary general of the forum in November 2013.
Unlike the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), whose main goal is to decide the supply and price of crude oil in international markets, GECF’s main objective is to monitor global gas market and to facilitate exchange of information and experience among the member countries.