Iran announced the details of its plan to procure 56 million Covid-19 vaccine shots for its population through four different channels as part of its mass inoculation program.
Iran announced the details of its plan to procure 56 million Covid-19 vaccine shots for its population through four different channels as part of its mass inoculation program.
Araqchi, who was in Doha at the head of a delegation, held separate meetings with Qatar’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani and Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Khalid Al Attiyah, a statement posted on the Foreign Ministry’s website said.
Twenty six power and water projects were officially inaugurated in four provinces on Thursday. Costing over $100 million, four were in West Azarbaijan in the northwest, nine in Isfahan, 10 in Mazandaran and three in Ardabil, IRNA reported.
The most important project was the Kani Sib Dam in Piranshahr, West Azarbaijan to supply water to Urmia Lake. One of the main goals of the dam is to transfer 600 million cubic meters of water per year to the lake. Another 100 mcm will be supplied for farming in the region.
Restoration of Lake Urmia is critical because agriculture, health, and livelihood of 15 million people in the western part of the country are dependent on the lake known as the “green jewel”.
The National Iranian Drilling Company, a subsidiary of National Iranian Oil Company, undertakes most drilling operations in the country and drilled 4,724 onshore and offshore oil and gas wells in four decades, the company’s managing director said.
Speaking on the occasion marking the 41st founding anniversary of NIDC, Abdullah Mousavi said 4,310 wells were drilled on land and 414 in deep waters, the Oil Ministry news portal reported.
“Drilling ventures included 2,437 development wells, 117 exploratory wells and 142 appraisal wells while 2,028 wells were repaired."
The Education and Human Resources Institute, affiliated with Tehran Chamber of Commerce Industries, Mines and Agriculture, is scheduled to organize two specialized management-related courses in the weeks ahead.
Desert locust swarms are expected to invade Iran within the next few weeks and an estimated 2 trillion trials ($7.72 million) are needed to battle the voracious pest before it reaches the country’s farms and orchards, according to the director general of Pest Control Bureau with the Plant Protection Organization of Iran, affiliated to the Agriculture Ministry.
“The pest will definitely infest our southern provinces of Hormozgan, Khuzestan, Bushehr, Sistan-Baluchestan and in fact, all the cities along our Persian Gulf coast," Saeed Moein was also quoted as saying by IRNA.
The locust has to be fought on over 1 million hectares this time, he added.
Revenues projected for Persepolis Athletic and Cultural Club, the Iranian multisport club and owner of Tehran’s state-owned Persepolis Football Club, as per the next fiscal year’s (March 2021-22) budget bill of state companies, banks and for-profit organizations stand at 950 billion rials ($3.65 million).
Iran’s labor market is not in a good shape, as its economic participation rate is low and unemployment rate is high.
According to a report by the Statistical Center of Iran, economic participation rate stood at 44.1% in the year ending March 2020. The rate stands at 50% in Middle Eastern countries and above 60% in East Asian countries, the World Bank 2020 report says.
The jobless rate has been in the double digits over the past two decades. However, unfavorable conditions of the labor market have not been the same for all.
The average price of each square meter of a residential property in Tehran increased by 2.5% to reach $1,273 in the year ending March 2015 compared with $1,242 in the year ending March 2014, the Persian daily Etemad reported, citing the Ministry of Roads and Urban Development.
The rising trend in home prices stopped in the year ending March 2016 to reach $1,200 per square meter, i.e., a 5.7% decline year-on-year.
Home prices remained unchanged ($1,200 per square meter) in the year ending March 2017.
In the following year (March 2017-18), the housing market saw an average 6% rise in prices per square meter of a residential property, i.e., $1,272.
Iran’s total exports to its top five European partners, namely Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain and Belgium, stood at €493.7 million during the first 10 months of 2020, showing a 7% rise compared with the similar period of last year.
According to data released by Tehran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture, Germany was the biggest destination of Iranian exports during the period with more than €223.1 million. It was followed by the Netherlands with €110.3 million, Italy with €84.7 million, Spain with €45.2 million and Belgium with €30.4 million worth of imports from Iran from January till October, IRNA reported.
Foodstuff and livestock accounted for 40%, chemicals for 19%, mineral fuels for 16%, industrial products for 11%, and inedible raw material (except fuel) for 10% of Iran’s overall exports to the European Union during the period under review.
The five main European exporters to Iran over the same period sold more than €2.37 billion worth of commodities to the country.
Imam Khomeini Port in the southern Khuzestan Province held ground-breaking and inauguration ceremonies for 18 investment and development projects worth 15.79 trillion rials ($61.2 million) on Wednesday.
The event was attended by Minister of Roads and Urban Development Mohammad Eslami and CEO of the Ports and Maritime Organization of Iran Mohammad Rastad, Fars News Agency reported.
Among the most important inaugurated projects were four multipurpose warehouses, oil product reservoirs and a mechanized grain terminal.
A total of $20 million worth of non-oil commodities were exported to the Caspian Sea littoral countries from the northern Mazandaran Province’s Amirabad Port during the first nine months of the current Iranian year (March 20-Dec. 20), which is one-fourth of the volume exported over the similar period of last year.
Director General of Amirabad Port Amir Jamshidi blamed the decline on the Covid-19 pandemic, which closed down many businesses and industrial units producing export goods in the province.
“Over the same nine months, 1.33 million tons of goods worth $4.76 billion were imported into Amirabad Port from Russia and the other Caspian Sea littoral countries, showing a 38% and 35% decline compared with the corresponding period of last year,” he was quoted as saying by IRNA.
Iran’s stock market is expanding its role in financing startups and knowledge-based companies, managing director of Iran Fara Bourse, the junior equity market, said.
Despite difficulties in listing startups and knowledge-based companies, 30 firms are being financed through IFB and the Tehran Stock Exchange, according to Amir Hamouni.
"Knowledge-based listed companies hold shares worth 130 trillion rials [$520 million]," he told a state TV, the IFB website reported.
Hamouni pointed to the increasing contribution of venture capital (VC) and private equity (PE) funds in raising money for startups, saying that so far there are 10 VCs operating in the IFB and six more are on the waiting list.
VC is a form of private equity and a financing instrument that investors provide to startup companies and small businesses that are believed to have long-term growth potential, or to companies that have grown quickly and appear poised to continue to expand.
The Iranian National Tax Administration unveiled the first phase of an electronic platform to monitor banking operations.
The nationwide payment settlement network in Iran, Shaparak, processed more than 2.691 billion payments worth 4,190.8 trillion rials ($16.37 billion based on open market forex rates) in the last calendar month to Dec 21.
Transactions were up 19.13% in volume and 50.16% in value compared to the 2.259 billion transactions worth at 2,790 trillion rials ($10.9 billion) handled by Shaparak during the same period last year.
Shaparak said rise in the number transactions was due largely to the increase in payment receiving instruments and debit cards plus the growing tendency among the people to use plastic cards instead of cash.
Shaparak also presented figures in real value terms to adjust for inflation. Accordingly, the real value of transactions registered 3.71% growth YOY.
With more than 12.37 million payment instruments operating in the reviewed month, the total number of instruments showed 19.74% growth compared to previous year's 10.33 million.
Almost 97.7 million commodity-linked certificates of deposit (CD) were traded at the Iran Mercantile Exchange in the first nine months of current fiscal year (March 20-Dec. 21).
Value of CDs was reported at 67.59 trillion rials ($270 million) – up 174% compared to the corresponding period last year. In volume terms the trade was 124% higher on an annualized basis, according to the IME news agency imereport.ir.
With 60.46 trillion rials ($240m) the gold-based CD topped the list in value terms accounting for 89% of the trade in the three quarters. Investors exchanged 34.04 million gold CDs in the period or 35% of the total.
Saffron, aka red gold, was the next best traded CD in value terms. However, it was on the top in the number of deals. As per IME data ‘Negin Saffron’ was the best traded CD as the world’s most expensive spice recorded 58.9 million deals worth 5.76 trillion rials, accounting for 60% of volume and 9% of the value of the CDs. Negin Saffron is considered as the highest-quality of Iranian saffron.
Iran’s Ministry of Information and Communications Technologies has launched projects to develop the poor communication infrastructure of the southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan.
During a trip to the province on Wednesday, ICT Minister Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi launched a joint project with two major mobile operators to establish 645 communication sites to strengthen mobile network and internet connectivity, the ministry’s website Ict.gov.ir reported.
“Mobile Telecommunications Company of Iran is tasked with opening 502 sites with 7.53 trillion rials [$29.18 million] and Irancell, the second major mobile operator, will set up 143 sites with 2.41 trillion rials [$9.34 million],” he said.
TCI is set to implement two other projects worth 1.7 trillion rials [$6.58 million] and develop home-based telephony services by extending fiber optic network with 300 billion rials [$1.16 million].
To prepare the ground for setting up new communication sites, the ICT minister signed an agreement with Saeed Mohammad, IRGC commander and the head of Khatam al-Anbiya Construction Headquarters (KAA).
Khatam al-Anbiya is an Iranian engineering arm of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps.
IRGC-KAA will extend the provincial fiber optic network by 532 kilometers at a cost of 1.43 trillion rials ($5.54 million).
Another 600 kilometers of fiber optic extension are planned to help stabilize cellular and internet connections.
Britain’s long and sometimes acrimonious divorce from the European Union ended on Thursday with an economic split that leaves the EU smaller and the UK freer but more isolated in a turbulent world.
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