South Korea’s First Vice Foreign Minister Choi Jong-kun left for Iran on Sunday to reportedly negotiate the release of the South Korean oil tanker and its crew seized by Iranian authorities last week.
National
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01/11/2021 -
01/11/2021Cuba said it has signed an accord with Iran to transfer the technology for its most advanced coronavirus vaccine candidate and carry out last-stage clinical trials in humans in Iran.
Energy
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01/11/2021Private investment in the loss-making power sector is almost zero, deputy head of the board of directors of the Power Generation Companies Syndicate said.
“Lack of investment in the key industry will be catastrophic in the near future. Come 2023 nationwide outages will become a permanent feature,” Ebrahim Khoshgoftar was quoted as saying by Barq News website.
It seems the government is undecided or confused, he added, about redefining electricity as a commodity (requiring minimal government intervention in the market beyond measures to ensure fair competition) or a social service (requiring government to intervene or even control delivery systems, he said. -
01/11/2021Jam Petrochemical Company in Asalouyeh, Bushehr Province, is to increase sales by 33% compared to last year and will earn $800 million in sales by the end of the current calendar year in March, the managing director said.
“Our total sale was $600 million last year (March 2019-2020), which was 43% higher than the year before that,” ILNA quoted Mohammadreza Saeedi as saying.
The rise was in tandem with higher production and the company will boost output this year. JPC is one of the largest producers of olefins in Iran with annual production of 1.32 million tons of ethylene, 305,000 tons propylene, 115,000 tons butadiene, 100,000 tons of butane 1, 300,000 tons of polyethylene (PE), 300,000 tons of high density polyethylene (HDPE) and 300,000 tons of polypropylene, Saeedi said.
Domestic Economy
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01/11/2021As bitcoin and other cryptocurrency prices jump, officials in Tehran have come up with new measures to prevent illegal use of subsidized electricity.
According to Mostafa Rajabi Mashhadi, spokesman at the Power Generation, Distribution and Transmission Company (Tavanir), the ICT Ministry has started analyzing users' internet traffic in order to detect cryptomining.
"We are coordinating with the ICT ministry to see network traffic of users and detect unruly cryptominers," IRNA quoted him as saying on Sunday. -
01/11/2021A total of 161 million square meters of tiles and ceramics were exported from Iran in the last fiscal year (March 2019-20), according to a member of Iran’s Tile and Ceramic Producers Union.
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01/11/2021Iran’s Sixth Exclusive Trade Exhibition, also known as IR.EXPO HERAT, is scheduled to be held in Afghanistan’s Herat Province from Jan. 19 to 22.
The event has been organized in collaboration with Trade Promotion Organization of Iran and Khorasan Razavi Province’s Governorate.
Business owners and traders active in the fields of technical and engineering services, industrial machinery and equipment, construction material, road construction, water and electricity, energy, telecommunications, printing and packaging industries, agricultural machinery, foodstuff, handwoven and machine-made carpets, textile industry, home appliances, medical equipment and health products and cultural services can participate in the exhibition.
All health protocols to prevent the spread of Covid-19 will be observed during the event, the news portal of Iran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture reported.
Economic players willing to participate in the exhibition may visit Mccima.com for more information. -
01/11/2021A total of 17.46 million tons of essential goods worth $8.76 billion were discharged from Iranian customs offices during the nine months to Dec. 20, according to Rouhollah Latifi, the spokesperson of the Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration.
Overall imports stood at over 25 million tons during the same period, of which 70% constituted 25 groups of essential goods, he added.
A total of $26.8 billion worth of goods were imported into Iran during the period.
Also known as necessity goods, essential goods are products consumers will buy, regardless of changes in income levels.
“Five essential items, namely corn, barley, oilseeds, raw oil and soybean meal, were subsidized imports weighing 12.29 million tons worth $4.14 billion. They accounted for 49% of country’s total imports and 70.5% of all essential goods imports in terms of weight,” he was quoted as saying by IRNA.
Corn imports, the top subsidized commodity, reached 7.24 million tons worth $1.77 billion during the period under review. It was followed by 1.84 million tons of oilseeds worth $949.75 million; 756,121 tons of raw oil worth $627.86 million; 1.1 million tons of soybean meal worth $461.74 million; and 1.34 million tons of barley worth $326.83 million. -
01/11/2021The World Customs Organization has approved Iran as its regional detector dog training center.
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01/11/2021A high-ranking economic delegation from Armenia, headed by its Economy Minister Tigran Khachatryan and accompanied by representatives of public and private sectors, is expected to visit Iran in late January.
“Negotiations will be carried out on expanding the list of commodities included in Iran and the Eurasian Economic Union’s preferential trade agreement, banking and transit cooperation, connecting Aras Free Trade Zone in Iran’s East Azarbaijan Province and Meghri Free Economic Zone in Armenia’s Syunik Province,” Mojtaba Mousavian, the deputy head of Trade Promotion Organization of Iran, was quoted as saying by ILNA.
The official noted that the Armenian delegation will also visit several production and industrial sites and discuss the possibility of joint production and exports to third-party countries. -
01/11/2021Iran’s unemployment rate, the proportion of jobless population of ages 15 and above, stood at 9.4% in the third quarter of the current fiscal year (Sept. 22-Dec. 20, 2020), indicating a 1.2% decline compared with the same period of last year.
According to the latest report of the Statistical Center of Iran, a total of 2,435,717 Iranians were unemployed in Q3.
Men’s unemployment stood at 8.1% while the rate for women hovered around 15.9%.
Over 1.73 million men and 700,153 women of ages 15 and above were jobless in Q3.
The unemployment rate was 10.2% for urban areas (1.97 million people) and 7.2% for rural areas (465,111 people).
SCI put Q3 labor force participation rate—the proportion of the population of ages 15 and above that is economically active either employed or looking for job—at 41.4% or 25.84 million people, registering a 2.9% year-on-year decrease.
Men’s and women’s economic participation rates were at 68.8% and 14.1% respectively.
SCI’s reports show that 21.45 million men and 4.39 million women of ages 15 and above were economically active in Q3, i.e., they were either employed or looking for job. -
01/11/2021
Outbound smuggling via eastern and western borders is to blame for the increase in prices of cooking oil, says Qasemali Hassani, secretary of the Union of Food Wholesalers.
“Sadly, the government is in charge of the production of cooking oil from beginning to end, from the allocation of foreign currency to the supply of raw materials, pricing and distribution; the private sector plays no role in this matter,” Hassani was quoted as saying by IRIB News.
“Prices are set by the government and cooking oil is only being distributed at chain stores with those price tags, whereas only 25% of people have access to chain stores,” he added.
He called on officials to dismiss mandatory pricing and instead pay cooking oil subsidy directly to the people, which is 10 million rials ($40) annually.
Business & Markets
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01/11/2021The National Development Fund of Iran, the sovereign wealth fund, plans to deposit 25 trillion rials ($100 million) with the Capital Market Stabilization Fund to be invested in the stock market.
NDFI head Morteza Shahidzadeh said the amount will be deposited before the current fiscal year is out in March, IRIB news website reported.
Earlier in November, the NDFI deposited 10 trillion rials ($40 million) with the CMSF to shore up the struggling share market.
The CMSF was created in 2017 to help resolve the credit crunch in the bourse. It has a mandate to supporting the market and safeguard the interest of investors. The fund was launched with an initial 3 trillion rials ($13 million) capital borrowed from the NDFI. -
01/11/2021President Hassan Rouhani said on Sunday that a specific mechanism governs the stock market and underscored the critical need to avoid "unskilled intervention" in its operations.
Addressing members of the government Economic Coordination Headquarters, Rouhani reiterated that the High Council of Securities and Exchange must be the one and only organization setting capital market policies.
"The bourse has a mandate to discover the real price of commodities. It is a basic policy of the government to support the pricing of goods based on supply and demand -- that is rules of a competitive market," he was quoted as saying by the government website dolat.ir.
The president described the stock exchange as a "major pillar in maintaining economic stability", saying that his government’s support for the share market is typically a function of playing by the rules. -
01/11/2021Foreign exchange and gold prices closed higher on Sunday in Tehran's forex market paring losses in previous sessions.
The US dollar briefly touched the critical 250,000-rial level breached a session earlier but later retreated and was quoted at 249,500 rials up 1% rise compared to Saturday.
The greenback had lost more than 3% to reach 247,000 rials on Saturday after fluctuating between 250,000- 260,000 rials for six weeks. The UAE dirham gained 0.7% or 500 rials, barely 100 rials shy of 70,000 rials.
The euro and UK pound, however, reversed course and posted losses on Sunday. Both currencies had not lost as the dollar and the UAE currency a session earlier. -
01/11/2021Tehran stocks broke a 3-day losing streak on Sunday as investor sentiment was buoyed by strong opposition from top government officials to the unwanted intervention in commodity prices.
The main index of Tehran Stock Exchange, TEDPIX, gained 20,728 points, or 1.61%, to close trade at 1,306,620 points.
Commodity stocks gained after reports that President Hassan Rouhani strongly opposed intervention in pricing mechanism of listed commodities at the bourse, including steel stocks.
Science and Technology
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01/11/2021Iran’s game industry is growing at a more rapid pace, which has been attested by a comprehensive survey conducted by Iran Computer and Videogames Foundation.
The foundation’s survey showed close to 550 game companies are active in Iran but with the inclusion of smaller players, such as university student teams, the number will exceed 1,000, Peivast news website reported.
The capital city of Tehran boasts 21 game companies followed by Isfahan with 11, Khorasan Razavi with seven and Qom with six companies.
Based on the data, 42 game companies have received support from the foundation, which has hired 283 full-time and 133 part-time employees by June 20, 2020.
The survey showed 15 companies supported by the foundation are registered as knowledge-based and 13 are recorded as “creative teams”.
