Coronavirus infections and deaths continued to climb on Wednesday, as overnight fatalities crossed the 300 mark for the first time since December and confirmed cases hit an all-time record of 25,000.
Coronavirus infections and deaths continued to climb on Wednesday, as overnight fatalities crossed the 300 mark for the first time since December and confirmed cases hit an all-time record of 25,000.
Qatar's emir stressed the need for expansion of relations between Tehran and Doha, saying the two countries must use all their capacities along this line.
President Hassan Rouhani said the initiation of uranium enrichment to 60% purity level is Iran’s reaction to the Zionist regime’s recent act of sabotage at the Natanz facility, which he described as nuclear terrorism.
The second phase of Firouz Bahram Wastewater Treatment Plan in southwest Tehran is near completion and set to become operational in summer, head of the state-owned Tehran Province Water and Wastewater Company (Abfa) said.
“After the sludge treatment unit is in place odorless reclaimed wastewater will be used for farming mainly in in Baharestan, Robat Karim and Eslamshahr,” Mohammad Reza Bakhtiari said referring to the working districts of the fledgling capital, ISNA reported.
Completion of the sludge treatment facility will help seal at least 125 wells in the three counties, most of which are severely depleted.
The first phase of the project was launched in February after which Tehran Municipality was obliged to seal 50 wells in and around the metropolis used for green spaces.
Construction of the Sarbisheh Wind Power Plant in Doreh rural district in South Khorasan Province is to be completed by fall, head of the renewable energy department of the provincial power company said.
“Work is 50% complete and of the total 20 wind turbines 10 have been installed and the rest have arrived or are being transported to the site,” Mohammad Ali Zamen was quoted as saying by IRNA.
The 50-megawatt wind farm being built by Mapna, Iran's top engineering and energy enterprise, will have 20 turbines of 2.5 MW each and a permanent magnet direct-drive system. It is being built over 22 hectares and is estimated to cost $100 million.
Iran and 27 members of the European Union traded €266.26 million worth of goods and commodities during January, to post a 28.23% decline compared with the previous year's corresponding period, when they exchanged €370.98 million worth of goods.
Latest data extracted from Eurostat's datasets show Iran exported €44.7 million worth of goods to the EU member states, recording a 41.4% decrease compared with the same period of 2019.
Iran’s imports from EU member states declined by 24.8% to €221.5 million during the period under review. Germany accounted for the largest share of exports to Iran, €91.03 million, down 20%, followed by Italy (€31.5 million), the Netherlands (€28.4 million) and France (€14.4 million).
Germany remained the top trading partner of Iran during the period, as the two countries exchanged €108.53 million worth of goods, 24.4% lower than the year before.
Iran’s employment rate was at 36.9% (23.13 million) in the fourth quarter of the last fiscal year (Dec. 21, 2020-March 20), down 0.9% compared with the same quarter of the previous Iranian year.
Tehran Province's population is expected to reach 20 million in five years, while its namesake capital city ranks the 25th most populous city in the world, with an ever-increasing population.
“Between 200,000 and 250,000 people are added to Tehran Province's population each year,” Masoud Shafiei, the head of the Management and Planning Organization of Tehran Province, was quoted as saying by ILNA.
The rise in population includes migrants from other cities and villages, as well as foreign countries.
Latest data released by the Statistical Center of Iran show the population of the capital city increased by 6.6% over five years from the fiscal year ending March 2012 to the year ending March 2017.
SCI estimated that 8,693,706 people and 2,903,435 households lived in the capital city in the year ending March 2017. About 17.4% of its residents constituted those below 14 years, 74.1% between 15 and 64 years and 8.4% were 65 years and above.
Home construction loans in urban slum areas have been paid to 20,013 applicants since March 2019, Mohammad Hassan Alamdari, a senior official with Bank Maskan, the state agent bank of the housing sector, said.
A total of 1.18 million trucks transported 18.29 tons of goods across the country during Norouz (Iranian New Year) holidays from March 15 to April 4, showing a 63.2% and 63.4% growth in the number of trucks and the volume of goods respectively compared with the similar period of last year, says Minister of Roads and Urban Development Mohammad Eslami.
An exclusive exhibition of Iranian products and services will be held in Erbil, the capital and most populated city of Iraqi Kurdistan Region, from June 9-12, according to the director general of Trade Promotion Organization of Iran's Office of Arab and African Affairs.
The average goods and services Consumer Price Index of “health and treatment” in the 12-month period ending March 20, which marks the end of the 12th month of fiscal 2020-21, increased by 29.9% compared with last year’s corresponding period.
The overall Purchasing Managers’ Index, known by its Farsi acronym Shamekh, for Iran’s economy settled at 54.73 in the month ending March 20, 2021, from 53.73 in the month ending Feb. 18, indicating an improvement of 1.86%.
A report by the Statistics and Economic Analysis Center of the Iran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture, the sponsor and coordinator of the survey, shows the index hit 18-month high (since the beginning of PMI reporting by the center) for the month under review.
The headline PMI is a number from 0 to 100, such that over 50 shows an expansion of the economy compared with the previous month. A PMI reading under 50 indicates contraction and a reading of 50 implies no change.
PMI is an index of the prevailing direction of economic trends, which provides information about business conditions to company directors, analysts and purchasing managers.
Some poultry plants sell their day-old chicken to neighboring countries despite receiving subsidized poultry feed from the government.
According to Habib Asadollah-Nejad, the deputy head of Iran Chicken Farmers Union, the outbound trafficking of day-old chicken has resulted in the shortage and price hike of the product in the local market.
“The government has set the price of a kilogram of chicken at 249,000 rials [about $1]; retailers across the country are required to comply with the decision,” he was quoted as saying by Mehr News Agency.
According to Hassan Abbasi Maroufan, Government Trading Corporation of Iran's commercial affairs deputy, per capita consumption of chicken in Iran is 28 kilograms per year, which indicates that overall consumption is not more than 2.2 million tons.
The ageing Rey Power Plant in Tehran generated two billion kilowatt hours of electricity in the last Persian calendar year (March 2020-2021), which was 5% more than a year ago, the Energy Ministry news portal Paven reported.
The 43-year-old thermal power station in south of the province, which has a generation capacity of 810 megawatts now, produced 1.95 billion kWh last year.
The raise was due to repair and maintenance of all 21 gas units undertaken by engineers.
The Central Bank of Iran is preparing a credit rating platform for bank customers based on their creditworthiness, the CBI’s deputy for innovative technologies said.
Speaking on state TV, Mehran Mahramian said the customer credibility check is in line with measures to further improve transparency in the banking system.
To assess the level of trustworthiness, each customer will be assigned a number, “indicating the credibility and discipline in meeting their debt obligations in a timely manner,” the CBI website quoted Mahramian as saying.
Tehran’s forex market was calm Wednesday with most currencies posting slight changes. The dollar was sold at 248,700 rials in the free market down 500 rials or 0.21% compared to the previous day's close.
Melli Exchange and other moneychangers affiliated to banks quoted the currency at 236,360 rials, which was 210 rials or 0.09% lower than Tuesday, Eghtesad News website reported.
After gains a session earlier Tehran’s share market was choppy on Wednesday to close trading week a little below the flatline.
Bucking an 11-day declining trend a day before, the market failed to extend the rally. The main index of Tehran Stock Exchange, TEDPIX, lost 1,198.5 points or 0.1% to end trading at 1,243,358.
About 4.49 billion shares valued at 39.2 trillion rials ($156.83 million) changed hands at TSE for the day. Trading at TSE and the junior exchange Iran Fara Bourse starts on Saturday and ends Wednesday.
The Trade Promotion Organization of Iran announced new rules Wednesday for repatriating forex earnings from exports in the current fiscal year that ends March 2022.
It was prepared and published by the Ministry of Industries, Mining, and Trade and it seems the Central Bank of Iran was sidelined in the entire process.
The rules call for diversifying repatriation methods to assist export companies. While offering export proceeds at the secondary foreign exchange market, known as Nima, is one of the options available to exporters, the guidelines put an end to the controversial obligation on some exporters to sell their currency earnings at Nima.
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