Iran’s top diplomat lambasted the US President Donald Trump's policy of backing “dictators, butchers and extremists” in the Middle East.
Iran’s top diplomat lambasted the US President Donald Trump's policy of backing “dictators, butchers and extremists” in the Middle East.
President Hassan Rouhani met with foreign ambassadors and representatives of international organizations in Tehran on Wednesday, ahead of the 40th anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi called on US President Donald Trump to reverse his pledge to maintain a US military presence in Iraq so that Washington can keep a close eye on neighboring Iran, stressing that the approach is not helpful.
“I don’t think that such statements [by Trump] regarding the presence of US troops in Iraq are useful,” the top Iraqi official said on Tuesday, Global News reported.
“I hope that [Trump] would back down from them. I hope that our American friends would clarify their stance on these issues.”
The European-sponsored financial mechanism to maintain trade with Iran despite American sanctions needs to ultimately include major Asian trade partners instead of remaining limited to Iran-Europe economic ties, an expert said.
The trade channel, formally called INSTEX (Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges) was officially registered last week by Germany, France and the United Kingdom (known as E3).
Its purpose is to facilitate commercial transactions with Iran while the country is under strict sanctions imposed by the United States after its withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal last May.
Experts from Iran and the three founders of a special European financial trade mechanism are to hold negotiations in Paris soon to work out the practical details of the payment system that aims to circumvent American sanctions on Tehran.
The arrangement was announced following consultations between Iranian and French diplomats on Tuesday.
France, Germany and the United Kingdom (E3) announced last week the official registration of their special trade vehicle named INSTEX (Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges), but it will not be activated until the operational details are finalized and a corresponding entity is established in Iran.
Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh says Iran has turned to the sale of Islamic bonds to finance oil projects.
Oil prices edged higher for the first time in three sessions on Wednesday, although concerns over the outlook for the global economy capped gains.
Sixty-three petrochemical plants have come on stream over the past 40 years and production and export of a variety of petrochemicals have grown.
According to National Petrochemical Company data, annual production of petrochemicals in 1979 was 1.5 million tons. This jumped 40-fold in four decades and is now in the region of 60 million tons per annum.
With the launch of petrochemical companies in the coming months, NPC's annual output is expected to reach 70 million next year.
Canadian company Pembina Pipeline Corp. says it is going ahead with a $4.5-billion joint venture with Kuwait's Petrochemical Industries Co. to build an integrated propane dehydrogenation plant and polypropylene upgrading facility northeast of Edmonton.
India’s Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited could buy 0.9 million tons of Iran oil in its 2018/19 financial year, said Vinod S Shenoy, the company’s director of refineries.
To speed up production from oil fields shared with Iraq, drilling operations on seven wells in Azar Oilfield in Anaran block in Mehran, Ilam Province, are expected to end by March, operation manager of the National Iranian Drilling Company said.
"It took the Norwegian company Norsk Hydro ASA almost two years to drill the first well. NIDC has carried out operations on six wells in less than two years and work on the last one will end soon," Hossein Rahimi was quoted as saying by Shana on Wednesday.
On completion of the seventh well, the joint field's output, currently at 30,000 barrels per day, will gradually increase to 65,000 bpd.
Privatization of power plants has not been compatible with Article 44 of the Islamic Republic Constitution based on which a large part of executive responsibilities of the Energy Ministry ought to be transferred to the private sector, a deputy manager at Iran Power Generation, Distribution and Transmission Company (Tavanir) said.
"Transferring power plants to the Social Security Organization, Bonyad Shahid (Foundation of Martyrs and Veterans Affairs) and banks with the aim of settling Energy Ministry does not mean privatization," Ali Asghar Esmaelnia was quoted as saying by IRNA.
Over 42,300 tons of tea worth around $195 million were imported into Iran during the first nine months of the current Iranian year (March 21-Dec. 21, 2018), latest data released by the Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration show.
India and Sir Lanka were the biggest exporters. Other main exporters of tea to Iran during the period were Turkey, Germany, China, Japan, Vietnam, Kenya, Poland and the UAE, Mizan Online reported.
“The rupee-rial trade between India and Iran will help Indian tea exporters," Vivek Goenka, chairman of Indian Tea Association, said recently.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin will hold a meeting on the sidelines of the Astana trio’s summit on Syria to discuss trade and economic cooperation, Russian Ambassador to Iran Levan Dzhagaryan said in an interview with TASS.
"The summit of Astana trio [Russia, Iran and Turkey] will take place in Sochi on February 14. A meeting between our countries’ presidents is planned to be arranged on the sidelines of the summit and we expect that trade and economic cooperation will be discussed among other issues," the ambassador said.
Three European signatories to the Iran nuclear deal—formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action—namely Germany, France and Britain, have proposed to limit the scope of INSTEX, the long-awaited mechanism for facilitating trade with Iran, to pharmaceutical, medical devices and agrifood in its initial phase, Iran’s Ambassador in London Hamid Baeidinejad said on Twitter.
Short for "Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges", the special purpose vehicle will allow European businesses to trade with Iran, despite strict US sanctions.
According to media reports, INSTEX will be based in Paris and managed by German banking expert Per Fischer who is also a former Commerzbank manager. The UK will head the supervisory board.
Data released by the World Federation of Exchanges place Tehran Stock Exchange at the top of the best-performing stock markets in terms of trading value among WFE members. The data covers performance of global stock markets in 2018.
According to WEF, the total value of TSE trade in 2018 reached $26.5 billion -- a whopping 112% growth over the corresponding period in 2017, making the TSE the top-performer on the list.
TSE was followed by Kazakhstan’s and Bahrain’s stock markets whose share trading values registered 87.4% and 71% growth respectively in 2018.
Head of the Security and Exchange Organization, the sole regulator of the capital market, said 13% of the Iranian population (10.5 million trading codes) is active in the capital market.
In terms of transparency, Iran's capital market is among the five most transparent in the world, he said.
Shapour Mohammadi told reporters on the sidelines of the first Algorithmic Trading Competition in Capital Market held in Tehran Wednesday that the number of listed companies now is over 600 in the Tehran Stock Exchange and the junior exchange Iran Fara Bourse.
"The number of financial firms will also reach 600 by the end of the calendar year in March," he said, adding that this “indeed is an achievement” compared with other countries.
Smart parking meters are being installed in Tehran’s District 2. Using the smart parking meters and a smartphone app backed by Tehran Municipality, motorists can pay and reserve road-side parking spots.
The project was initially introduced in December. People can use the smart parking meters by early April, the project manager, Soheil Mazloum, told the local news website peivast.com.
The system works through the smartphone application 'Tehran-e Man' (literally my Tehran), introduced by the municipality for minor urban payments.
The government will lend money to two local auto companies, Iran Khodro and SAIPA, to the tune of 40 trillion rials ($333 million). The bailout is for paying part of the carmakers’ mounting debt to local parts makers.
In a talk with Mehr News Agency, the secretary of Iran Auto Parts Manufacturers Association (IAPMA), Maziar Beiglou, provided some details about the loans.
Beiglou said over the past four months automakers have not paid parts makers a dime. The two major car companies are sinking in red ink and “owe local parts manufacturers some 140 to 150 trillion rials ($1.16-1.25 billion).”
“SAIPA and IKCO each will receive 20 trillion rials ($166.5 million) in new loans from the government.”
The number of foreign visitors landing in Iran registered a slight decrease between 2015 and 2017, the United Nations’ World Tourism Organization said.
The UNWTO’s Compendium of Tourism Statistics is a reference guide for the measurement and analysis of tourism sector and presents data for 203 countries from 2013 to 2017.
The data of this writing come from the 2019 edition of the compendium.
In 2017, 4,867,000 people visited Iran from overseas, indicating a 1.5% decrease over the previous year whereas there were 5,237,000 foreign visitors to Iran in 2015, about 5.6% more compared with the following year, i.e. 2016.
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