Sputnik News- Tehran would like Turkish companies to be more actively involved in Iran’s upstream and downstream projects, Deputy Petroleum Minister in International Affairs and Trading Amir Hossein Zamaninia said Wednesday.

The five-day run of the World Petroleum Congress started in Istanbul on Sunday. The event gathers over 5,000 people from around the globe, including some 50 ministers and 500 policymakers.

"We will welcome greater engagement by Turkish companies into Iranian upstream and downstream projects," Zamaninia told the Anadolu news agency on the sidelines of the 22nd World Petroleum Congress in Istanbul.

Turkey already purchases oil and gas from Iran under long-term deals, with one of them being bilateral Gas Sales and Purchase Agreement of 1996 for the purpose of supplying 10 billion cubic meters of Iranian natural gas per year to Turkey, Zamaninia noted.

"We need to work together to find projects that suit both companies in Turkey and Iran of which there are plenty," Zamaninia stressed, noting that Ankara and Tehran possessed multiple common grounds for investment.

Iranian Deputy Minister of Petroleum for Trade and International Affairs Amir Hossein Zamaninia said Tuesday that the country's daily gas exports were expected to reach 365 million cubic meters by 2021.

Meanwhile, the overall gas industry output in Iran would hit 1 billion cubic meters per day by the end of 2017, the deputy minister added.

According to Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) data, Iran exported 8.567 billion cubic meters of natural gas in 2016.