6th ECO Minerals Experts Group Meeting convened in Sungun Mine Complex in Tabriz
The 6th ECO Minerals Experts Group Meeting, hosted by the Geological Survey of Iran (GSI), was held on 17-18 October 2016 in Sungun Mine Complex in Varzeghan Area, Tabriz - East Azerbaijan Province, Iran. The Meeting was actively participated by the delegations from the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, Republic of Azerbaijan, the Islamic Republic of Iran (host), the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, Republic of Tajikistan, as well as the ECO Secretariat.
The Meeting was jointly inaugurated by Dr. Mohammad Faridi, Director of the Northwestern Regional Office (Tabriz Centre) of GSI and Mr. Fuad Farzalibayov, ECO Director for Energy, Minerals & Environment (EME). While welcoming the participants to Sungun Mine Complex, Dr. Mohammad Faridi underlined the importance of the Meeting and called for enhancement of synergic and coherent cooperation among ECO Member States in the field of mining and energy supply for successful and pragmatic implementation of joint projects and initiatives. He added that it would certainly lead to socio-economic development and prosperity of the peoples living in ECO Region given the huge regional potential of hydrocarbon reservoirs, including natural gas and metallic and non-metallic deposits by identifying synergic approaches to address the challenges in ongoing and future activities in the ECO Region for mutual dividends.
Mr. Fuad Farzalibayov, ECO Director for EME, expressed his profound gratitude to the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, particularly GSI, for hosting the 6th ECO Minerals Experts Group Meeting along with the 2nd Workshop on ECO-SHARP and for making excellent arrangements for delegations. ECO Director briefed the Meeting about ECO`s overall profile and policy priorities concerning the minerals, recent progress made and activities carried out by ECO Secretariat in collaboration with Member States in this important sphere. He stressed that ECO is now prioritizing advancing regional agenda in the context of UN Sustainable Development Agenda adopted during the historic UN Summit on post-2015 Development Agenda (September 2015, New York). It is also developing the new ECO Vision for 2016-2025, which would define key action areas of the Organization for 2016-2025 in coherence with regional and global trends. Minerals, mapping and surveying, including geomatics, will be an integral component of many activities in ECO work programmes in future.
During the Meeting, delegations from ECO Member States delivered their country presentations/statements highlighting national mineral policies and geological profiles, including minerals exploitation, production data and maps, metallogenic zones, investment opportunities in mineral sector, tectonic zones, best practices, recent developments, challenges and future roadmaps in the field of minerals. They also emphasized on the collective efforts for enhancing and strengthening ECO regional synergy to harness maximum benefits from complementarities and commonalities for proper utilization of mineral resources in the ECO Region.
During the active deliberation session, the delegates discussed in length different areas of cooperation in the field of minerals in the ECO Region and put forward key outcome recommendations and proposals for future actions, inter alia, Assessment of Sedimentary Copper Ore Deposits in the ECO Region; Regional Cooperation on Spiral Tectonic; Identification of Geological Risk Factors of Cardiovascular Diseases Incidence in ECO Member States; Preparation of Geodynamic and present-day Crustal Stress Map of the ECO Member States; and proposal on tectonic map and mineralogical map between Republic of Azerbaijan and Iran with possible participation of other ECO Member States to meet the existing border gaps among the geographical countries. In this backdrop, the Meeting called upon concerned Member States to provide with comprehensive Concept Papers on earlier and new proposals to ECO Secretariat by end of February 2017 for further circulation among the ECO Member States with a view to embarking on the proposed feasible projects.
The Meeting also received information on the ECO-SHARP Project which had been discussed in the Workshop preceding the 6th Expert Meeting on 15-16 October 2016.
On 18 October, participants visited to Sungun Copper Mine, where they got opportunity to see the main facilities, infrastructure and operating capacities, and learned how technologies are employed in various applications. They expressed key interest for future synergic cooperation among ECO Member States in copper mine segment as well.