A 17 member CEO’s Mission, lead by the ACMA President Mr. L Ganesh flew to Iran on 19th May 2001, visiting the cities of Tehran and Esfahan.

ACMA, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Iranian Auto Parts Manufacturers Association (IAPMA), for sustained cooperation in a number of areas such as trade promotion, information gathering and dissemination, participation in Trade Fairs, etc. The IAPMA co-ordinated the entire Mission programme for the ACMA delegation, in co-operation with the Indian Embassy in Tehran.

This mission was a follow-through to the visit of H E Mr Akbar Torkan, Minister for Mines & Industries, Industrial Development and Renovation Organisation, Iran, who had visited The Automotives After-market and Services Exposition (TAASE), organised by ACMA in February this year. The Minister and his delegation also visited a number of auto component units in the country and was very impressed with the existing capabilities.

The ACMA delegation found an increasing awareness, in Iran, of the strengths of Indian auto component manufacturers which has led Iranian companies to seek technology and manufacturing support from Indian component manufacturers. Joint-production and buy-back arrangements were discussed where components like raw forgings could be manufactured in Iran, sent to India for value addition by way of machining, etc. and shipped back to the country. This would be a win-win situation for both countries as manufacturing raw forgings in Iran would be very cost effective owing to the availability of power at very low costs.

With IAPMA organising the programme, the delegation visited a host of vehicle and auto component manufacturing companies in the two cities. A buyer-seller meet in Tehran was co-ordinated by the Indian Embassy to help establish one-to-one business contacts.