Economic Relations:

As China's booming economy has turned the country into one of the biggest oil and gas consumers in the world, Iran, as OPEC's second-largest crude oil supplier, can only be a natural partnerfor China.
China, which has become the world's second largest oil importer over the past decade, currently gets 13.6% of its oil imports from Iran. Beijing also wants to step up imports of Iran's natural gas. Trade between the two countries hit a record of $7.6 billions in 2004 that Iran's export worth $4 billions and they expect to reach $9.5 billions in 2005.

Iran has an estimated 26.6 trillion-cubic-meter gas reservoir; the second largest in the world. At present a comprehensive development including exploration and drilling, petrochemical and gas industries, pipelines and other services, is expected in the fields related to oil industries.
In the long term, Beijing also hopes to secure a pipeline project in Iran taking oil 386 kilometers to the Caspian Sea where it could link with another planned pipeline from Kazakhstan to China.
China and Iran are currently cooperating on 100-odd different projects. Meanwhile Iran's increasing appetite for consumer goods is bound to provide huge opportunities for Chinese companies eager to expand overseas. Chinese firms are
active in Iran in the fields of metro, electricity dam building, cement plants, steel mills, railway, shipbuilding, transport, oil and gas and refinery.
The Chinese firms are also cooperating with Iranian partners to develop ports, jetty, airport and metro in six Iranian cities and mines development projects. Iranian economy is growing and the government backs foreign investment in various sectors by guaranteeing the capital invested in different projects as well as the associated proceeds of foreign capital. It should be noted that with new legislation Iran has accelerated process of foreign investment.
The new geopolitical situation in the region urges both countries to cooperate for more security and development in West and CentralAsia.
Tehran-Beijing relations are at an excellent level and senior officials of Iran and China are holding regular consultation on bilateral, regional and international cooperation.