Iran, Venezuela to Expand Cooperation in Promotion of Herbal Plants

Director of the Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research (IVIC) Alberto Quintero said in a meeting held on the sidelines of the 6th National Festival and Exhibition of Medicinal Plants, Natural Products, and Iranian Traditional Medicine in Tehran that he and his accompanying delegation are interested in starting cooperation with Iran in promotion of herbal plants.  

A Venezuelan delegation, including Latin American country’s Vice-President for Science and Technology Carolina Eser,  participated in the event to expand the technological interactions between the two nations.

Addressing the meeting, Quintero said that given its location in a specific geographical area and connecting the Southern parts of the country to the Southern parts of the Amazon, Venezuela has many different plant species.

"Therefore, it is possible to conduct much scientific research in the field of medicinal plants in Venezuela," he said, adding, " But we did not work as we should in this field."

Thanks to these climatic conditions, there is a good opportunity for Iranian companies, Quintero said.

At the end of this meeting, Iranian knowledge-based companies held negotiations for cooperation with the Venezuelan authorities, and technological interactions and discussions took place between the Iranian companies and the Venezuelan side.

The 6th National Festival and Exhibition of Medicinal Plants, Natural Products, and Iranian Traditional Medicine was held on November 1 to 4, with the presence of 240 companies.

Business delegations from Russia, Serbia, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Venezuela, Oman, India, and Gambia participated in the exhibition.

Iran ranks fourth in the world in the production of science in the field of traditional medicine, and the remarkable achievement will improve in the coming years, Nafiseh Hosseini Yekta, the director of the health ministry’s Persian medicine office, said.

Over 17,000 books have so far been published about Persian traditional medicine, which has been recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO), she noted.

Iranian traditional medicine strongly focuses on prioritizing health maintenance and disease prevention over treatment.

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