An official with Iran’s Health Ministry has urged authorities to tighten restrictions on citizens’ movements and promote the stay-home campaign to stem a surge in coronavirus cases that has overwhelmed hospitals across the country.
An official with Iran’s Health Ministry has urged authorities to tighten restrictions on citizens’ movements and promote the stay-home campaign to stem a surge in coronavirus cases that has overwhelmed hospitals across the country.
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif traveled to Kuwait on Sunday to meet the Arab country’s new Emir Sheikh Nawaf al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah and his counterpart, Sheikh Ahmad Nasser Al-Mohammed Al-Sabah.
Moscow would have “no problem” selling its S-400 air defense system to Iran, Russian Ambassador Levan Dzhagaryan.
Tehran Comprehensive Water Supply Plan, dubbed Tehran Water Ring System, will be completed by next August and all districts will have access to the same water quality, Tehran’s governor said.
Pipe-laying operations from Bandar Aftab (Garzeh) in Bandar Lengeh County, Hormozgan Province, to Kish Island for supplying natural gas to the island has begun, head of Kish Gas Field development project said.
“Laying the 32-inch gas transmission pipeline will be completed in 20 days. Work on the 16-km started on Saturday,” Mehr News Agency quoted Abdullah Mehrabi as saying.
Late in July shore-pull operation for 2 km of subsea pipeline of the Kish-Garzeh offshore gas pipeline project in the Persian Gulf was carried out.
A total of 15.69 million tons of mineral products worth $2.17 billion were exported from Iran in the first five months of the current fiscal year (March 20-Aug. 21).
According to a new report released by the Iranian Mines and Mining Industries Development and Renovation Organization, steel topped the list of exports in terms of value with $1.11 billion. It was followed by copper with $334.12 million and cement with $120.98 million.
In terms of tonnage, cement had the lion’s share with 5.7 million tons, followed by steel with 3 million tons.
Different types of stone ranked third with 1.81 million tons, followed by iron ore in the form of fines/lumps with 1.04 million tons.
According to the IMIDRO data, alumina powder exports saw the biggest jump in terms of value (2,069% year-on-year) to reach $720,000, followed by mica with $10,000 (up 507% YOY), ferro-silico manganese with $130,000 (up 59% YOY), aluminum products with $63.56 million (up 44% YOY) and ferro molybdenum with $5.41 million (up 18% YOY).
The average goods and services Consumer Price Index of utilities (water, gas and electricity) in the 12-month period ending Sept. 21, which marks the end of the sixth Iranian month, increased by 23.1% compared with last year’s corresponding period.
The CPI of the group among 12 groups of the basket of consumer goods and services purchased by households stood at 194.8, indicating a 2.7% increase compared with the month before.
The group’s CPI index, which has the biggest impact on total inflation rate with a coefficient of 35.5%, registered a year-on-year increase of 26.2%.
Loans paid under the government-backed relief program increased by 50% over the past month, according to the taskforce combating the economic impact of coronavirus.
Cattle farms in Iran produced 1.89 million tons of milk and 355,000 heads of heavy livestock in the second quarter of the current year (June 21-Sept. 21), indicating a 2.16% and 0.57% increase compared with the preceding quarter.
According to the latest report released by the Statistical Center of Iran, a total of 4.85 million heads of heavy livestock in Iran’s cattle farms in Q2, indicating a 1% decrease compared with the preceding quarter.
A total of 299,000 calves were born in these farms over the same period, registering a 23.92% decline quarter-on-quarter.
Iran accounts for nearly half of Afghanistan's market demand, according to Iran’s commercial attaché to the neighboring country, Mohammad Mehdi Javanmard-Qassab.
About $3-4 billion of Afghanistan’s total annual imports worth $6-7 billion are from Iran, he added.
“The depreciation of Iranian currency has paved the way for an increase in exports … Afghanistan has huge capacity and demand in the field of technical and engineering services. This provides us with ample opportunity for the export of these services and the transfer of our technical knowhow in different fields to Afghan businesses,” Javanmard-Qassab was quoted as saying by Fars News Agency.
To achieve this objective, the official added, Iran held a technical and engineering exhibition in September.
One hundred thousand homes will be constructed for people of modest means in cooperation with Kuzu Group, a Turkish construction company.
According to Alaeddin Khataei, the managing director of Iranian Barter Market, the contract between the Turkish firm and his company was signed for accelerating the supply of homes and reducing home prices.
Noting that both sides will participate in financing the project using domestically-produced construction materials, Khataei said, “The project would create at least one million jobs and energize factories engaged in the construction industry. These residential units will be offered to people belonging to low-income deciles without requiring any advance payment. These units will be granted in the form of Qarzol-Hassaneh [interest-free credits].”
Iran’s commercial exchanges with its biggest trading partner, China, hit $9.8 billion from January to August to register a 40.6% decline compared with the corresponding period of 2019.
Share prices in Tehran were choppy Sunday but sell-side pressure prevailed further pulling down demand. The main index of Tehran Stock Exchange, TEDPIX, closed in red losing 23,173 points or 1.5% to finish at 1,522,980 points.
The equal weighted index, which gives the same weight to all shares irrespective of their market cap, was down 0.5%.
Despite decline in shares of many listed companies, the value of trade in both TSE and the junior equity market rose 64% compared with Saturday to reach 170.7 trillion rials ($600 million).
The Export Guarantee Fund of Iran, the state-owned export credit agency, and Parsian Bank signed an agreement Sunday to jointly finance and guarantee loans to exports of non-oil goods.
Parsian also agreed to allocate a higher portion of its loans to non-oil export firms in the form of seller credit, the EGFI website reported. Seller credit or seller contribution is money the seller gives to pay for closing costs.
The credit helps ease the process of receiving bank loans for exporters in line with measures to boosting non-oil exports, Afrouz Bahrami, the EGFI chief, was quoted as saying.
In a ceremony held Saturday by the central bank the performance of 49 giant exporting companies was appreciated as they met all their commitments to repatriate overseas earnings.
A press statement of the Central Bank of Iran said 108 companies had returned earnings from foreign sales worth $26 billion from March 2018 to mid-May this year.
“The 49 exporters appreciated had fully returned their earnings worth $22 billion,” the CBI Governor Abdolnasser Hemmati said on the sidelines of the ceremony.
Major currencies moved further from record highs reached last week and declined Sunday both in Tehran’s free market and official exchange-bureaus affiliated to the Central Bank of Iran.
The US dollar lost more than 12,000 rials on Sunday and declined to 284,000 rials or 4.5% in one day. It had reached an all-time high of 300,000 rials on Thursday.
The euro was down by 6,600 rials to be worth 338,873 rials dropping close to 2% compared to Saturday. The UK pound sterling slipped more than 2% to trade and was quoted at 373,000 rials.
Four tech projects in the fields of pharmaceuticals and agriculture have recently come on stream in three provinces, which will help curb the country’s reliance on foreign supply.
Supported and financed by the Vice Presidential Office for Science and Technology, the projects were inaugurated by President Hassan Rouhani via videoconference on Thursday, the office’s website Isti.ir reported.
The move is part of the government's initiative to launch 200 industrial, mining and trade plans worth 1.69 quadrillion rials ($5.72 billion) and create 41,000 jobs across the country by the end of the current fiscal year (March 2021).
The first project launched by Rouhani was a production line for two plasma-derived medicinal products, Albumin and immunoglobulin, in Alborz Province.
Present at the inaugural meeting, Sorena Sattari, the vice president for science and technology, said the two products are currently imported from Germany and Austria.
“A 50 mg vial of the components is worth €200, hence the local production of the two medical matters will significantly slash capital flight,” he added.
The other project, launched in the province, was a bio-fertilizer production line.
Sattari said chemical fertilizers should be gradually replaced with eco-friendly counterparts.
Iran Web and Mobile Festival (IWMF) has started registering startups and tech firms keen on participating in the 2021 contest that will be held in Tehran.
The outlook for the aviation industry has deteriorated again due to rising coronavirus infections and renewed travel restrictions, Airbus chief operating officer, Michael Schoellhorn, was quoted as saying on Saturday.
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