Iran's petrochemical exports will rise up to 20 million tonnes by the end of this year on March 20, said the director of the Planning and Development Department in National Petrochemical Company (NPC) on Monday.

Elimination of sanctions has facilitated development of the petrochemical industry and the exports to the extent that statistics show growth in the production and exports in recent months, Farnaz Alawi was quoted as saying by Irna.

Though due to oil price fall, value of petrochemical exports has been dropped, the volume of exports has increased and new markets have been opened for the petrochemical exports.

Alawi said the installed petrochemical capacity will reach 64 million tonnes by end of this year.

She said last year, the petrochemical output stood at about 46.5 million tonnes and in the first seven months (March 20-October 20) of this year (started on March 20) , the production was 29 million tonnes and it is to stand between 50 to 51 million tonnes by end of this year (to end on March 20).

Alawi put the value of petrochemical exports at $9.6 billion in 2015-16 and said by October 20, $4.8 billion exports were registered and it is expected to reach about $9 billion by end of this year.

Iran's petrochemical production capacity will reach 130 million tonnes/year by next nine years.

It would take an investment of $50 billion to $70 billion in the industry to reach the target, she said.