Iranians across the country marched in their vehicles on Wednesday to commemorate the 42nd anniversary of the Islamic Revolution’s victory.
Iranians across the country marched in their vehicles on Wednesday to commemorate the 42nd anniversary of the Islamic Revolution’s victory.
Iran’s tally of Covid-19 infections rose past 1.5 million on Friday, the Health Ministry announced, as the second shipment of Russian-developed vaccine Sputnik V arrived in the country.
Mapna, the engineering and energy giant, has manufactured hydrogen-fuelled gas turbines that consume less gas to generate electricity and instead of hazardous emissions discharge water, the managing director said.
CEO Abbas Aliabadi told reporters Thursday the MGT-75 turbine will be unveiled soon and considerably boost production from existing infrastructure without the need for new and costly power plants.
"MGT-75 is an industrial accomplishment and one of the best-in-class turbines in the world. The new generation MGT-70 turbines allow expansion of power production without spending massive amounts on new units," Aliabadi said.
Adding hydrogen to natural gas is a major step toward decarbonize energy production as its combustion process emits less greenhouse gases including CO2. It also produces more energy.
The fourth upgrade to the MGT-70 turbine has improved efficiency by 24% to 60% over the previous design.
An oil jetty in the Persian Gulf is near completion in Qeshm Island and will be launched in spring, head of economy and investment affairs at Qeshm Free Zone Organization said Monday.
Oil prices dropped for a second day on Friday, pulling further back from a one-year high after OPEC again lowered its demand forecast and the International Energy Agency said the market was still over-supplied.
Iran is exporting more oil even as sanctions remain in place, as it looks ahead to a full return to the global oil market as demand recovers from the pandemic.
Two dams, Molla Sadra and Tang-e-Khomar, were inaugurated in southern Fars Province on Tuesday. Located 140 kilometers from the provincial capital Shiraz, the first dam will help expand farming in the region, a deputy energy minister said.
Iranian trucks are once again permitted to enter Georgia after a one-year ban, according to the director general of Transit and International Transportation Affairs Bureau of Iran Road Maintenance and Transportation Organization.
After the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic in Iran in mid-February 2020, Georgia banned the entry of Iranian trucks into its territory to avoid the viral spread.
“After negotiations between the two sides, the restrictions were lifted as of Feb. 1 and our truck drivers can enter Georgia to transport goods or use the neighboring country’s roads for transport purposes,” Javad Hedayati was quoted as saying by Mehr News Agency.
The per square meter price of homes in Iran are 500% more than their construction costs, a deputy minister of roads and urban development said.
Noting that exorbitant home prices are beginning to stabilize in recent months, Mahmoud Mahmoudzadeh added that the only reason behind the wide gap between the construction costs and home prices is that housing remains an investment vehicle, IRIB News reported.
According to Ahmad Khorram, the head of Construction Engineering Organization, each year, 100 million square meters of buildings are constructed in Iran’s urban and rural areas.
“The annual turnover of real-estate development is 4,000 billion rials [$16 million]. The per square meter cost averages 50 million rials [$200] in Iran, with 60-65 million rials [$240-260] in cities and 30-35 million rials [$120-140] in villages,” he said.
“Engineering services account for 5-8% of construction costs in the world whereas in Iran they barely exceed 1%.”
A total of 2.2 million residential properties constructed under the government-sponsored Mehr Housing Project have been delivered to their owners so far, of which 1.35 million units were built during the administration of President Hassan Rouhani, says Deputy Minister of Roads and Urban Development Ahmad Asghari Mehrabadi.
“There are 39,000 unfinished Mehr housing units across the country at present, which are expected to be completed by September 2021, when this government’s term of office ends,” he was quoted as saying by IRNA.
The Mehr project is a large-scale construction program initiated in 2007 by the previous administration to provide 2.2 million low-income people with housing units through free land and cheap credits.
The revenues of Iranian tech firms and knowledge-based companies has exceeded 1.2 quadrillion rials ($4.63 billion) in the first 10 months of the current fiscal year (started March 20, 2020), an official with Iran National Innovation Fund said.
Mohammad Sadeq Khayyatian also told IRNA that Iranian tech firms’ income during the 10 months ending Jan. 19 observed a year-on-year rise of 40%. The companies’ annual revenue is expected to surpass 1.5 quadrillion rials ($5.79 billion).
Attributing the jump partly to the sudden outbreak of the coronavirus disease late last year, he said the technology ecosystem has boosted the production of health and medical products to ward off the virus.
“Surveys have shown that out of 5,700 knowledge-based companies in Iran, 1,418 are working on information and communications technologies, 1,267 on machinery and equipment, and 1,111 on electric and electronic products,” he added.
Khayyatian explained that the government’s support plan for the knowledge-based companies next year envisages tax and customs exemption, ease of commercial license issuance, social security fee cut, military service reduction and extension of business empowerment consultancy.
Iran’s greenhouse areas currently stand at 21,000 hectares, showing a 162% upsurge compared with the 8,000 hectares when President Hassan Rouhani first took office in August 2013, Agriculture Minister Kazem Khavazi said recently at the inaugural ceremony of 372 greenhouse projects.
“The government plans to increase greenhouse areas to 25,000 hectares by the end of its term in August, which will register a threefold rise,” Khavazi was quoted as saying by IRNA.
During the ceremony held on Sunday, 954 hectares of greenhouses were inaugurated, creating jobs for around 11,500 people.
The number of people who worked two jobs at the same time rose from 726,000 in the year ending March 2018 to 834,000 in the year ending March 2020, latest data released by the Statistical Center of Iran and the Ministry of Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare show.
The multiple jobholding rate increased from 3.1% to 3.4% in the two years.
Between 49.4% and 54.4% of multiple jobholders worked at jobs categorized under “agriculture, forestry and fishing” group as their second jobs, while 70.6% were employed in the agriculture sector in the last fiscal year (March 2019-20), which share stood at 66.8% in the year ending March 2018 and 66% in the year ending March 2019, IRNA reported.
The government earned 1,920 trillion rials ($7.68 billion) from taxation, customs duties and resources entitled “miscellaneous income” during the nine months to Dec. 20, 2020, which is 88% of the projected figure in the budget law for the period.
According to a report by Fars News Agency, nine-month income from the transfer of capital assets, which consists of several sections such as the export of petroleum products, natural gas and gas condensates was less than 10% of the budgetary estimate for the period, i.e., 75.21 trillion rials ($300 million).
The earnings from the transfer of financial assets, including sales of treasury bonds, stood at 1,715 trillion rials, constituting 130% of the budgetary estimate for the nine months.
The Central Bank of Iran says inflation expectations continued to decline in the previous fiscal month ending Jan. 19, as indicated by stability in various financial markets.
In a performance report published on its website, CBI enumerated various anti-inflationary measures in the month under review.
Taking stock of the slowing pace of inflation in the month in light of declining trends at various markets, CBI said "if the current trend were to continue, the monthly inflation will decline further in the coming months, which by extension, has a deferred impact on average annual inflation".
This can help realize the inflation target of ±22% set by CBI for the first quarter of the next fiscal year (March 20-June 21, 2021).
The government sold bonds worth 30.7 trillion rials ($120.3 million) in the previous week during the bond auction held by the Central Bank of Iran.
Buyers at the interbank market were two banks and credit institutions, which placed bids worth 3.5 trillion rials ($13.7 million), which was significantly lower than 16 trillion rials (62.7 million) in bond sale at the interbank market last week.
This week's auction featured a larger number of retail and institutional investors in stock market to the bond sale, as they bought 19.3 trillion rials ($75 million) in bonds. The share of retail and institutional investors was zero in the previous auction.
Underwriters were the next buyers. As per CBI data, security underwriters bought bonds worth 8 trillion rials ($31.6 million).
Foreign exchange rates were mostly increasing in the past seven days, mainly under the influence of political developments.
The US dollar rose by nearly 10,000 rials during Wednesday and Thursday trade, rising as high as 260,000 rials. The currency was traded at 258,000 rials on Thursday, 2.71% higher than Wednesday's close, according to Eghtesad News website.
Even bank-affiliated money exchangers, considered as the arm of the Central Bank of Iran for controlling exchange rates, sold the greenback at considerably higher price of 246,000 rials, up 2.84%, on Thursday.
Iranian Offshore Oil Company, affiliated to the National Iranian Oil Company, has inaugurated an environmental project in Kharg Island off the Persian Gulf.
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