Financial Tribune - Sixty desalination plants produce 250,000 cubic meters of water per day in the coastal regions, namely Khuzestan, Hormozgan and Bushehr, deputy chief engineer with the National Water and Wastewater Engineering Company said.

�Twenty-five desalination facilities are under construction in Mazandaran, Sistan-Baluchestan, Semnan, Alborz, Isfahan, Kerman and Ilam provinces,� ISNA quoted Shahin Pakrouh as saying on Sunday.

Upon completion in 2022, desalination capacity will reach half million cubic meters a day.

Contracts worth $141 million were signed with domestic private firms in the past seven years to build 85 desalination plants that are gradually coming online.

Although Iran is located in an arid and semi-arid area, access to vast resources of saltwater in the north (Caspian Sea) and south (Persian Gulf) is seen as a major advantage.