Iran officially unveiled 133 projects in various sectors of its civilian nuclear industry on Saturday, marking the 15th anniversary of the National Nuclear Technology Day.
Iran officially unveiled 133 projects in various sectors of its civilian nuclear industry on Saturday, marking the 15th anniversary of the National Nuclear Technology Day.
President Hassan Rouhani on Saturday said the main reason for the emergence of the fourth wave of the coronavirus pandemic was the British variant of the virus that entered Iran through its border with Iraq.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reported that it is covering the cost of health insurance for an additional 20,000 Afghan refugees in Iran.
Lack of sustainable and long-term planning to combat water shortage can lead to serious consequences, the UNICEF representative to Iran said.
“Located in an arid and semi-arid region, Iran has grappled with acute water paucity for decades and absence of planning to address this major issue can adversely affect many people, especially children in vulnerable regions,” Mandeep O'Brien who was speaking at the closing ceremony of a water drawing festival in Tehran last week was quoted as saying by IRNA.
Referring to the appalling consequences of being deprived access to safe water, she said at least 700 kids die every day in the world due to fatal water-borne diseases that mostly strikes children under 5.
A project to produce catalysts used in polypropylene and high-density polyethylene will be launched at the Arak Center of the Petrochemical Research and Technology Company, Markazi Province, in the coming weeks, managing director of the National Petrochemical Company said.
“The vision of the petrochemical industry is to produce catalysts with domestic knowhow and reduce imports,” the NPC news website Nipna quoted Behzad Mohammadi as saying.
Referring to the progress of his company in producing petrochemical catalysts and acquiring the advanced technical knowhow, he said: “Last year, production of polypropylene from natural gas started in Mahshahr, Khuzestan Province, by PRTC experts and engineers and a similar project is underway in Eslamabad-e-Gharb in Kermanshah Province.”
The semi-industrial unit in Arak to produce polypropylene and HDPE catalysts is designed to produce 1,200 tons a year. The methanol to propylene unit in Mahshahr, launched last year, produces 40 kg of propylene from methanol per hour.
The recent cold spell has caused 19 trillion rials ($76 million) in losses to pistachio orchards in Sirjan County of Kerman Province.
A total of 800,000 tons of agricultural products were exported to the neighboring Iraq from Qasr-e Shirin County in the western Kermanshah Province during the last Iranian year (March 2020-21).
In the current fiscal year (started March 21), the desert locust was first spotted in the south of the country on March 24 and the pest has so far been battled over an area of 6,000 hectares.
“Locusts have been battled on 3,500 hectares in Khuzestan Province, 1,600 hectares in Bushehr Province and 400 hectares in the western province of Ilam,” Masoud Latifian, an official with Plant Protection Organization of Iran, was quoted as saying by ILNA.
The official noted that PPO’s experts in 10 southern provinces are on the lookout for the pest.
A memorandum of understanding has been signed between Iran and the neighboring Afghanistan for the construction of a second bridge connecting Milak and Zaranj counties in Iran’s Sistan-Baluchestan Province to Afghanistan’s Nimruz Province to facilitate trade interactions between the two sides.
A total of 1,925 trillion rials ($7.62 billion) in tax were collected in the last fiscal year (March 2020-21), indicating a 37% increase compared with the year before.
According to Mohammad Masihi, the deputy head of the Iranian National Tax Administration, the government earned 107% of the projected budgetary income from taxation in the last fiscal year (March 2020-21).
The government’s tax revenues consist of returns from “direct taxation” and “tax on goods and services”. Direct taxes include three groups of “tax on legal entities”, “income tax” and “wealth tax”.
Masihi said direct tax earnings stood at 1,190 trillion rials ($4.71 billion) in the year ending March 20, to account for 136% of the projected income in the budget law and 46% more than direct tax revenues of the preceding year (March 2019-20).
The Ministry of Industries, Mining and Trade's review of the first 11 months of last Iranian year (March 20, 2020-Feb. 18) shows the output of eight mineral products (out of 11 under review) registered growth compared with the corresponding period of the year before.
A total of 699,000 jobs were safeguarded throughout the coronavirus crisis as a result of loans extended by the government to businesses under the Covid-19 relief assistance program.
According to Alaeddin Azvaji, the director general of Policymaking and Job Department of the Ministry of Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare, a total of 235 trillion rials ($940 million) in loans were allocated to 14 groups of businesses, including 858 subgroups in the first stage of the program.
In the second stage, which is still underway, four sectors of “transportation”, “tourism and handicraft industries”, “sports and youth”, and “culture and art”, were found eligible to receive, respectively, 37,000 billion rials ($148 million), 20,000 billion rials ($80 million), 8,000 billion rials ($32 million) and 18,000 billion rials ($72 million) in loans.
The Energy Ministry's recent move to raise electricity prices for cryptomining has drawn the indignation of miners who claim the measure will tempt illegal mining and capital flight.
Those involved in the gradually growing business say setting (higher) power tariffs based on electricity export rates is “unfair”. Many miners have left the country for neighboring states such as Iraq, where there are less obstacles to their business, Peyvast magazine reported.
The Energy Ministry on Wednesday published new regulations for cryptomining. Miners will be charged 16,574 rials for one kilowatt-hour of electricity.
Banks and credit institutions are barred from processing payment requests of customers lacking complete ID information stored in the banks’ data center as of April 26, an official with the Central Bank of Iran said.
Mehran Mahramian, the CBI vice governor for innovative technology said the new restrictions are in line with improving transparency and security of transactions.
"From April 26 transactions via banks that lack proper ID requirements will be denied by the PAYA system," he wrote, referring to specially launched automated interbank clearing house. The main requirement from clients is the national ID number.
Tehran stocks opened trading week Saturday in negative territory extending a long losing streak that has lasted for two weeks.
The main index of Tehran Stock Exchange, TEDPIX, lost 9,213 points or 0.74% to end trading at 1,240,696. More than 65% of the tickers experienced price declines.
As with most of previous sessions, the trade value continued to decline reaching 54.38 trillion rials ($216 million) down 65% compared with a session earlier.
The Iranian Mines and Mining Industries Development and Renovation Organization (IMIDRO) has repaid 110 trillion rials ($440 million) in debt to the government.
Gold prices declined again in Tehran on Saturday amid widespread closure of markets and despite lukewarm trends in the foreign exchange market.
The Emami gold coin lost 1.65% and was worth 104.1 million rials, down 1.7 million rials compared to the session earlier.
The Half Bahar Azadi coin was 1-million-rial lower dropping 1.6% and bought 6.3 million rials, according to Eghtesad News website.
The residents of Iranian capital breathed in more polluted air in March compared with the corresponding month of last year, data released by Tehran Air Quality Control Company show.
Charts published on TAQCC’s website, Airnow.tehran.ir, show that in March, clean blue skies were seen on only four days with the air quality index showing "good" condition.
The index categorizes conditions dictated by a measure of polluting matters into good (0-50), moderate (51-100), unhealthy for sensitive groups (101-150), unhealthy (151-200), very unhealthy (201-300) and hazardous (301-500).
Moderate status dominated the month, keeping the index between 51 and 100 in 20 days.
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