Iran has called on global airplane manufacturers and service providers to invest in its aviation industry. Abbas Akhundi, Iran’s minister of roads and urban development, said on Sunday that Iran is eager to form partnerships with international investors over the development of airports, as well.

Akhundi, speaking to IRNA in Paris, said Iran specifically needs to upgrade its planes and build airports that would be equipped with the new generation of aviation technologies.

He added that Iran plans to negotiate with French companies to bring them in its aviation projects and that talks are planned to purchase planes from certain French companies but did not specifying which companies have been approached.

Akhundi emphasized that Iran needs to rejuvenate its ageing aviation fleet, stressing that the country has had no major investments in this sector for the past 10 years.

He said that Iran needs to upgrade technology in new generation of airplanes and building new generation of airports with foreign partners.

Iranian airlines are currently operating with a fleet of about 140 aircraft and officials have already announced that Iran needs to buy up to 500 passenger planes in the next 10 years to renovate the country’s aging fleet.

The United States and the European Union have imposed a series of sanctions against Iran’s aviation industry for the past few years. The sanctions ban sales of planes to the country among many other things.

Recently, Iran’s Mahan Air that had announced it had purchased a number of Airbus planes won the ire of the US. Accordingly, the Treasury Department announced sanctions against the supplier companies that it said were in Iraq and the UAE.

Officials in Washington also warned that the US will act to stop Mahan Air’s newly-purchased planes. Tehran showed an immediate reaction to this and said the threat – if implemented – would be a violation of international laws worthy of a legal action.

By Press TV