Iran’s foreign minister said he hopes Japan will push for the lifting of economic sanctions imposed on Tehran by former US president Donald Trump.
Iran’s foreign minister said he hopes Japan will push for the lifting of economic sanctions imposed on Tehran by former US president Donald Trump.
Iran submitted a letter to the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency on Monday to inform the global watchdog of a plan to halt its voluntary cooperation under the 2015 nuclear deal as of February 23.
Iran’s Health Ministry reported some 8,000 new coronavirus cases on Tuesday, the highest single-day rise in nearly two months, as experts warn of a rising fourth wave of infections.
Twenty four water and electricity projects worth $50 million were inaugurated in five provinces on Tuesday. Nine were in Qazvin Province, five in Lorestan, and Chaharmahal-Bakhtiari each, four in North Khorasan and one in Alborz Province, the Energy Ministry reported.
To reduce water use from depleting underground resources in Mazandaran Province, a desalination unit is set to become operational at Shahid Salimi (Neka) Power Plant in April, head of the power station said.
“Construction of the desalination unit with a capacity to produce 6 million liters of water a day from the Caspian Sea has made 95% progress and will go on stream soon,” Mohsen Nemati was quoted as saying by IRNA.
A project of domestic engineers and water experts, the initiative was launched in 2018 and was supposed to be completed in 2019. However, the US economic blockade against Iranian individuals and organizations made it difficult to import equipment and the venture was delayed, Nemati said.
The second specialized exhibition and conference to support domestic manufacturing in the petrochemical industry opened in Kish Island in the Persian Gulf on Monday.
Hosting 160 domestic oil industry equipment manufacturers, knowledge-based companies, petrochemical firms, banks and investment companies, the three-day event provides a platform to interact, share ideas, discuss business opportunities and services and boost support for domestic production, Mehr News Agency reported.
Participants are studying prospects for sharing technical knowhow and engineering services for the production of chemicals, catalysts, equipment and new technologies.
Tehran’s International Exhibition Center is hosting four industrial and mineral exhibitions. The events opened simultaneously on Monday in a ceremony attended by Deputy Industries Minister Mehdi Sadeqi-Niyaraki, and CEO of Iran’s International Exhibitions Company Hassan Zamani.
A commercial delegation comprising businesspeople and members of Iran Chamber of Cooperatives is scheduled to visit Armenia from March 2-5 for expanding bilateral trade.
The delegation will hold meetings with Armenian economic players and merchants as well as officials from the neighboring country’s chamber of commerce and industries, engage in B2B negotiations and visit industrial sites in Yerevan, the news portal of Iran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture reported.
Businesspeople interested in the event may contact 05832285835 or 09120925689 for more information.
Iran and Armenia traded 1.09 million tons of commodities worth $264 million during the first nine months of the current Iranian year (March 20-Dec. 20, 2020), registering a 29% decline in value compared with the similar period of last year, according to the chairman of Iran-Armenia Chamber of Commerce.
Importers of goods included in Group IV of customs categories, i.e., non-essential goods, are allowed to discharge their goods, provided that they had completed banking import registration and foreign currency provision procedures.
According to Mehrdad Jamal Orounaqi, a senior official with the Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration, the customs clearance of Group IV goods is not subject to time limitations and importers have been allowed to initiate the procedure starting Feb. 13, ISNA reported.
Following the re-tanking of the national currency in early 2017, the government introduced stringent rules like banning the imports of 1,339 items categorized as Group IV, which are products deemed “non-essential” and have domestic counterparts, in a move to economize on foreign currency amid US sanctions.
IRICA stopped clearing Group IV merchandise despite the fact that more than €70 million worth of them had arrived at the country’s ports. The administration had allowed the clearance of Group IV products on certain conditions from Feb. 18-Sept. 16, 2020. However, abandoned goods have piled up at customs terminals across the country, some of which are on the brink of decay.
A total of 3.65 quadrillion rials ($14.36 billion) worth of investment were made in industrial units with establishment permits, while projects with operating licenses are estimated to have received 1.48 quadrillion rials ($5.83 billion) in the first three quarters of the current Iranian year (March 20-Dec. 20, 2020).
Investment volumes in units with establishment permits and operating licenses show a respective growth rate of 50% and 282.2% compared with the similar period of last year, the latest report released by the Ministry of Industries, Mining and Trade shows.
Lawmakers finally approved the outlines of the fiscal 2021-22 budget revised by the government on Tuesday with 211 votes in favor and 28 against, while six MPs abstained from voting.
The approval came after the parliamentarians had rejected the bill’s outlines on Feb. 1 and returned it to the government for revision, IRNA reported.
This followed the radical decision of Majlis Joint Commission—a commission comprising representatives of all parliamentary commissions responsible for reviewing budget bills as well as five-year development plans proposed by the government before they are put to a vote by MPs—to increase the exchange rate for importing essential goods from 42,000 rials to 175,000 rials per US dollar.
The commission had given its green light to the outlines of the budget, but included the above decision as an amendment.
Iraqi Airways will resume flights on Tehran-Najaf-Tehran and Mashhad-Najaf-Mashhad this week, as restrictions on issuing flight permits to Iranian airlines have been lifted, the spokesperson of the Civil Aviation Organization said.
Iran Fara Bourse, Tehran's junior equity exchange, on Tuesday hosted the biggest venture capital fund (VCF).
The controversial plan allocating cheap foreign currency for import will continue in the next fiscal year (starting March 20).
The decision is part of the revisions made to the draft of the next fiscal budget after it was rejected by Majlis earlier in the month.
Speaking in a parliamentary session on Tuesday while submitting the new budget bill, Mohammad Baqer Nobakht, the head of Plan and Budget Organization, said the subsidized foreign currency allocation policy has been envisioned to stay in the first six months of the next fiscal year (ending Sept. 21).
"In the revised draft, we tried to avoid any potential shock to markets and prices," he was quoted as saying by IRNA.
Almost all large cap shares at Tehran Stock Exchange were under unrelenting sell side pressure on Tuesday, while many penny stocks experienced a price surge.
TSE's main index, the market cap-weighted TEDPIX, fell 0.9% for the day under mounting selloff pressure in blue chips.
Its equal-weighted index gained close to 0.2%, as small-sized listed companies, especially pharma, agro and tire companies, performed comparably better.
Non-performing loans of Iranian banks and credit institutions were worth 1,770 trillion rials ($7 billion) by the end of the second quarter of the current fiscal year (Sept. 21), the latest data published by the Central Bank of Iran show.
Compared to the March-June quarter, the figure was 15% lower but on an annualized basis it was 4% higher, Tehran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture said in an analytical report, citing CBI's data.
NPLs had been rising steadily over the past two years, from 1,510 trillion rials ($6 billion) in the last quarter of the fiscal 2019-20 (January-March) to a whopping 2,090 trillion rials ($8.3 billion) in the next quarter.
Hence, the pause in growth of bad loans in Q2 indicates CBI's success in accosting big loan defaulters in recent months.
The share of tech firms in Iran’s GDP has been increasing exponentially and is expected to hit 10% in the coming years, an official with Iran’s National Innovation Fund said.
Mohammad Sadeq Khayyatian added that the government must continue to support startups, accelerators and innovation centers to increase this contribution, INIF’s website reported.
“Iran’s technology ecosystem is growing fast and so will its share in GDP. In the 2000s, there were only 52 knowledge-based companies in Iran, which figure today stands at 5,700. For that matter, Iran’s first science and technology park was launched 10 years ago in Isfahan Province. Today, 46 tech parks are operating nationwide,” he said.
Because of Iran’s dependence on oil revenues, the government did not seek to generate income from the knowledge-based sector in the past.
Khayyatian noted that the policies have been changed, such that Iran is increasingly counting on the technology ecosystem for wealth production and the state is extending more support to knowledge-based companies.
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