Issues between Iran and Saudi Arabia have been discussed with a friendly approach and in a spirit of goodwill and have made some progress, according to an Iranian senior official.
Issues between Iran and Saudi Arabia have been discussed with a friendly approach and in a spirit of goodwill and have made some progress, according to an Iranian senior official.
Iran’s stance on its nuclear issue is among the Islamic Republic’s principled policies and will not change upon the change of government, the foreign ministry spokesman said on Tuesday.
Mazino Coal Mine in Tabas, South Khorasan Province, was launched on Tuesday to provide feedstock for Tabas Power Plant that is currently under construction.
Two million tons of coal per year will be extracted from Mazino, an open-pit mine, to be fed into Tabas Power Station that is the first coal-fired power plant in Iran and will be operational in three years, the Energy Ministry’s news website Paven reported.
Open-pit mining, also known as mega-mining, open-cast or open cut mining, is a surface mining technique of extracting rock or minerals from an open-air pit, sometimes known as a borrow.
This form of mining differs from extractive methods that require tunneling. Open-pit mines are used when deposits of commercially useful ore or rocks are found near the surface.
The whole national power grid, including power plants, transmission substations and distribution networks, is functioning under tremendous pressure and this has put the entire system on the verge of total collapse.
Mostafa Rajabi Mashhadi, spokesman of Iran Power Generation, Distribution and Transmission Company (Tavanir), said as long as demand exceeds output, unscheduled outages will continue across the country, Barq News reported.
Referring to frequent power cuts over the past few days which have caused widespread dissatisfaction among subscribers, Rajabi noted that to prevent damaging the network, all transmission and distribution lines are equipped with voltage- and frequency-relays that cuts the electricity automatically as soon as the load across the network surpasses certain amount in a certain region.
“Although Tavanir is doing its best to inform subscribers in advance, unplanned outages will be unavoidable when the demand exceeds production,” he said.
The second phase of Hamedan Wastewater Treatment Plant, including a sludge treatment unit, has become operational, the managing director of Hamedan Province Water and Wastewater Company said.
“The facility can now treat 110,000 cubic meters of wastewater per day and the refined sewage goes for farming and Shahid Mofatteh Thermal Power Plant,” the Energy Ministry’s news portal Paven quoted Hadi Hosseini Bidar as saying.
Completed at an estimated cost of $25 million, the plant uses activated sludge method to process sewage and its third phase is expected to become operational by the yearend.
Iran Power Generation, Distribution and Transmission Company (Tavanir) has ordered steel and cement production factories to reduce electricity consumption by 10%, otherwise their power supply will be cut.
The Purchasing Managers’ Index for the housing sector in the third month of the current Iranian year (May 22-June 21) settled at 60.55 from 57.14 in the preceding month (April 21-May 21), indicating a 5.97% increase, Iran Chamber of Cooperatives reported.
PMI is an indicator of the health of economic sectors and provides information about current business conditions to decision-makers, analysts and purchasing managers.
Raw material inventory, employment conditions, new orders, supplier deliveries and export/production conditions were among the criteria quizzed, yielding a final score of between 1 and 100.
If a business scores 50, it means that no change has been perceived compared to the previous month, while scores higher or lower than 50 indicate that the business is booming or stagnating respectively.
President Hassan Rouhani inaugurated via videoconference 62 manufacturing, economic and infrastructure projects worth 31,050 billion rials ($124.2 million) in free trade zones of Maku, Chabahar, Aras and Anzali on Tuesday.
With the completion of these projects, a total of 1,638 jobs will be generated, IRNA reported.
Thirty-eight economic, infrastructure projects worth 15,140 billion rials ($60.56 million) were inaugurated in Aras Free Trade-Industrial Zone in the northwestern province of East Azarbaijan plus four projects worth 7,580 billion rials ($30.32 million) in Maku Free Trade Zone in West Azarbaijan Province, 14 projects worth 6,160 billion rials ($24.64 million) in Anzali Free Trade Zone in northern Gilan Province; and six projects worth 2,160 billion rials ($8.64 million) in Chabahar Free Trade Zone in the southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan.
Exports from Semnan Province exceeded 6 million tons worth $1.65 million in the third month of the current fiscal year (May 22-June 21), according to an official from Semnan's Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture, Zahra Andalib.
Industrial Development and Renovation Organization of Iran has entered a joint venture with a foreign company to produce explosion-proof LED lamps in Shiraz Special Economic Zone.
The Central Bank of Iran has supplied $5,542 million at the subsidized forex rate of 42,000 rials per US dollar for the import of essential goods since the beginning of the current Iranian year (March 21).
Latest data released by CBI show it has allocated $1,218 million for the import of corn; $883 million for oilseeds; $580 million for barley; $1,097 million for unprocessed vegetable oil; $483 million for soybean meal; $225 million for wheat and $130 million for other essential goods.
Also known as necessity goods, essential goods are products consumers will buy, regardless of changes in income levels.
A total of $926 million were also allocated to the Health Ministry for importing pharmaceuticals and their raw materials over the period.
The Statistical Center of Iran has published its latest report on home and land prices as well as rent levels in the country’s urban areas during the third quarter of the last Iranian year (Sept. 22-Dec. 20, 2020), the autumn of fiscal 2020-21.
According to the report published on the website of SCI, the average price of each square meter of land or land of a rundown residential property (residential units that are considered old to a degree that only the underlying land is useful for construction) in Iranian cities went up by 118.4% in Q3 compared with the corresponding period of the year before. Prices increased by 20.9% compared with the preceding quarter (Q2 of the last Iranian year).
The minimum price of each square meter of land or land of a rundown property in the capital city stood at 793,000 rials ($3.17) while the maximum was at 1.55 billion rials ($6,200), bringing the average to 88.65 million rials ($354.6).
Seafood consumption per capita in Iran reached 13.3 kg in the year ending March 2021, indicating a 56% increase compared with 8.5 kg in the year President Hassan Rouhani took office, i.e., fiscal 2013-14.
According to Nabiollah Khounmirzaei, the head of Iran Fisheries Organization, the country’s overall seafood production increased by more than 38% from 885,000 tons to 1.22 million tons during the period under review.
“In the fishing sector, output grew 35% from 514,000 tons in the year ending March 2014 to 700,000 tons in the last [Iranian] year. The aquaculture output also improved by 43% from 371,000 tons to 530,000 tons during the period,” he was quoted as saying by IRNA.
Repetition of past mistakes in policymaking is more pervasive than many would imagine. Many countries scored spectacularly with economic indicators for a period of time but then mistakes made by their policymakers pushed them into recession. One of the best examples of such countries is Iran.
In a write-up for the Persian daily Donya-e-Eqtesad, Economist Hossein Abbasi outlines policies he believes the incoming government should not pursue. Below is the translation of the text:
One of the best examples of an economy beleaguered by its policymakers’ repetitive mistakes over the past half century is Iran: an economy blighted by recessions and production downturns for more than one-third of the past 50 years.
The Central Bank of Iran says it is restraining surplus liquidity of banks in the interbank market. In a press release posted on its website, the CBI said it implemented the reverse repurchase agreement (reverse repo) in which banks give money to the CBI in lieu of bonds.
The regulator said it reduced 64.5 trillion rials ($258 million) in surplus liquidity from three banks. The bonds purchased by banks will mature in seven days at 18%.
It said it implemented reverse repo following the hoarding of liquidity in the interbank market. While the regulator was injecting money in the interbank market in the first weeks of the new fiscal year (started in March), it reversed course in the past two months to control and absorb the excess liquidity.
Performance reports of payment service providers show three major companies handled nearly 57% of the total e-transactions in the fiscal year to March 2021.
Shaparak, a company affiliated with the Central Bank of Iran and in charge of supervising Iran's domestic payment network, processed more than 33.16 billion e-payments worth 54,571 trillion rials ($228.8 billion) in the year, 21.27% of which was handled by Beh Pardakht Mellat company.
Saman Electronic Payment and Parsian Electronic Commerce Company were next with 19.34% and 17.6%, respectively. PECCO managed to expand its market share by 2.51% during the period.
Affiliated to Parsian Bank, the PECCO posted remarkable growth at 44% in the number of transactions to top the list of PSPs in terms of increase in the number of payments. Pasargad Electronic Payment came after with 43% growth in the volume of transactions.
Forex and gold prices posted slight gains on Tuesday in Tehran paring some earlier losses.
After pulling back to the critical 250,000-rial level a session earlier, the dollar was quoted at 251,000 rials in the open market, up 0.55% or 1,300 rials compared to Monday’s close.
The euro was up 0.19% buying 297,150 rials, 590 rials higher than the earlier session. The UK pound sterling gained 0.4% to reach 347,480 rials. The biggest gainer was the UAE dirham rising 0.8% or 550 rials to fetch 68,600 rials.
At the Melli Exchange the greenback was tagged at 250,990 rials -- 0.5% higher compared to Monday. However, it took a reverse course in the wholesale currency market, known as the regulated forex market, where it was down 0.5% % to fetch 243,600 rials.
Tehran’s share market made one of the biggest advances on Tuesday rising for two sessions in a row as demand for most commodity shares remained high.
The main gauge of Tehran Stock Exchange, TEDPIX, gained 26,569.10 points or 2.12% to end trade at 1,218,130. Recovering from a two-session correction phase, the TEDPIX made the biggest daily gain in the past 26 trading sessions.
The TSE-30 Index jumped 2.7% as a broad range of large cap stocks experienced price rise. The index tracks the performance of top TSE-listed companies in terms of market cap.
Together with large caps small companies too performed well on Tuesday, pushing up the TSE’s equal weighted index by more than 1.3% -- the highest daily gain in 94 sessions, according to data compiled by the Eqtesad News website.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization has recently released a comprehensive report on Iran’s technological and scientific growth in the past five years.
Based on the report, knowledge-based firms and startups in Iran have registered exponential growth.
UNESCO’s previous science report detailed Iran’s plans for gradually weaning its economy off oil resources to accelerate transition toward a knowledge economy.
Events over the intervening years have encouraged the government to pursue this transition with greater ardor.
Subscribe to our daily newsletter.
More from DEN Media Group:
© Financial Tribune Daily and Contributors 2014-2018