President Hassan Rouhani on Saturday reported a significant drop in adherence to Covid-19 safety measures despite the recent climb in cases and hospitalizations.
President Hassan Rouhani on Saturday reported a significant drop in adherence to Covid-19 safety measures despite the recent climb in cases and hospitalizations.
The spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry stressed the need to save the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, urging the US to take concrete actions to regain the international community’s trust and make an early decision to comprehensively and completely lift the illegal sanctions on Iran.
OPEC forecast a gradual recovery in demand for its crude this year and next, as the group closes in on a deal to revive the production still shuttered since the pandemic.
Water stored in Khuzestan Province’s dams has dwindled by a massive 5 billion cubic meters compared to a year ago, the head of Provincial Water and Electricity Company said.
“Karkheh and Dez dams in the region now barely hold 4 bcm of water, while they collected more than 9 bcm of water last year,” Farhad Izadjou was also quoted as saying by ISNA.
Stressing that rice cultivation in the southern province should have been totally banned due to water shortage, he said, “We advised farmers to cultivate alternative crops such as pulses, sunflowers, soybeans and fodder, which are less water-intensive, but most of them did not pay attention.”
Mojen Dam in Shahroud County, Semnan Province, which overflowed two years ago due to good rainfall in the region, is currently about half empty.
The dam has a capacity to hold 4.8 million cubic meters of water, ISNA reported.
However, with a 45% decline in rainfall in the current wet year, which started in September, in Semnan compared to last year, the volume of water stored in the dam has declined to 2.6 mcm.
Constructed on Mojen River in 2018, the dam has been designed to provide water for farmlands in the region. Wheat, saffron, apricot and grapes are among the agricultural products.
Borujen Petrochemical Park will be constructed in Chaharmahal-Bakhtiari Province to develop downstream industries, create employment and boost the southwestern province’s economy.
The facility will be built with an investment of $120 million and when operational, it will produce 65 products, most of which are to be imported, the Oil Ministry’s news agency Shana reported.
It will be fed with 35,000 tons of polypropylene, 85,000 tons of polyethylene, 40,000 tons of styrene butadiene rubber, 150,000 tons of urea and 10,000 tons of ethylene-propylene diene monomer annually.
A total of 86,367 tons of rice worth $78.14 million were imported into Iran from the beginning of the current fiscal year on March 21 to July 6, marking a 70% decline in both weight and value compared with the similar period of last year, according to the deputy head of the Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration, Mehrdad Jamal Orounaqi.
The seasonal ban imposed on rice imports has been lifted in the current Iranian year as per the decision of the Market Regulation Headquarters, affiliated with the Ministry of Industries, Mining and Trade.
The headquarters agreed to go forth with the decision after taking into account this year’s estimated domestic production, imports and matters involved in local market regulation, Mehr News Agency reported recently.
The Market Regulation Headquarters has announced that the measure will be taken to ensure the country’s demand for the staple grain is met.
The Education and Human Resources Institute, affiliated with the Tehran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture, is scheduled to hold six specialized business courses.
The first course titled "Comprehensive Business Skills Training" is scheduled to be held from July 31 on Saturdays and Mondays from 4-7 p.m. Topics to be covered include generalities of international trade, HS commodity classification system, Incoterms 2020, LinkedIn, international transport, familiarity with the step-by-step import/export process, customs and EPL regulations, as well as order registration. The course will run for a total of 50 hours, the news portal of TCCIM reported.
The second course titled "Foreign Purchases and Order Management" is scheduled to be held online from August 1 on Sundays and Tuesdays from 4-7 p.m. Topics to be covered include organizing individual and corporate businesses, calculating import duties and taxes, types of imported goods, studying pro forma and its contents, business cards, registering an order on the NTSW site (NTSW.org), choosing the field of activity in the business card based on the type of imported goods, shipping and transfer insurance, payment in the banking system and foreign exchange remittances as well as customs, export and import regulations.
A total of 375,407 tons of banana worth $255.31 million were imported into Iran in the last fiscal year (ended March 20, 2021).
Turkey with $129.8 million, India with $54.3 million, Ecuador with $34 million, the Philippines with $33.8 million, Pakistan with $2.7 million, the UAE with $434,000, Russia with $48,000 and Vietnam with $35,000 were the main exporters of banana to Iran in the last fiscal year, according to the spokesperson of the Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration.
Banana imports stood at 136,133 tons worth $92.88 million in the first quarter of the current fiscal year (March 21-June 21), Rouhollah Latifi was also quoted as saying by IRNA.
Unemployment rate for university graduates stood at 13.4% in the first quarter of the current Iranian year (March 21-June 21), posting a 0.1% decrease compared with last year’s corresponding period.
Iran and 27 members of the European Union traded €1.84 billion worth of goods during the first five months of 2021, to post a 1.07% growth compared with the previous year's corresponding period.
Bilateral trade grew by 9.96% in May to €394.9 million.
Figures extracted from Eurostat's datasets show Germany remained the top trading partner of Iran during the five months under review, as the two sides exchanged €732.6 million worth of goods, 6.05% less than the year before.
Italy came next with €252.3 million worth of trade with Iran. A year-on-year comparison of the figures indicates a 0.81% decline in trade between Iran and Italy.
The Netherlands with €197.5 million (up 5.41%), Spain with €131.3 million (up 19.13%) and Belgium with €96.2 million (up 8.5%) were Iran's other major European trading partners.
A total of $54 million worth of home appliances were exported from Iran during the first two months of the current fiscal year (March 21-May 21).
According to Secretary-General of Iran Home Appliance Industries Abbas Hashemi, Iraq, Afghanistan, Commonwealth of Independent States, North Africa and Persian Gulf countries were the main destinations of Iranian home appliances during the period, IRNA reported.
Some Iranian products such as wall-mounted water heaters have also been exported to the European Union, especially to Italy, the official added.
A total of 181,175 tons of agricultural and food products worth $53 million have been exported from Astara border terminal since the beginning of the current fiscal year on March 21, according to the manager of Astara Agricultural Organization.
Cattle farms in Iran produced 2.2 million tons of milk in the first quarter of the current fiscal year (March 21-June 21), indicating a 10% rise compared with the preceding quarter, the Statistical Center of Iran reported.
Tehran’s share market was choppy at the start of trading week on Saturday as a strong rally in the early hours weakened as trading session drew to a close.
Despite mounting sell-side pressure in the late hours, the main index of Tehran Stock Exchange, TEDPIX, closed higher gaining 5,745 points or 0.44% to end trade at 1,311,241.
The benchmark growth was mainly due to price rise in most refinery stocks following reports that the government plans to offer discounts on feedstock sold to the refiners.
The session saw some growth in capital inflow by retail traders. According to Eqtesad News, net capital injection by retail investors was 1.35 trillion rials ($5.6 million), up 462% compared to the earlier session.
The Central Bank of Iran in a report said that the monetary base has increased extraordinarily in the past several months largely due to government borrowing from the CBI.
The total money in circulation crossed 5,000 trillion rials ($20.8 billion) at the end of the third calendar month to June 21, posting 30.7% or 1,170 trillion rials ($4.8b) increase compared to the same month a year before. That was the highest point-to-point growth in the past 11 months, the CBI website said.
It also was 9.2% higher in the first quarter (March 21-June 1) of the current fiscal year, up 0.6 percentage points compared to the 8.6% in Q1 of last year.
In its report the CBI noted that the huge expansion in the monetary base in the first quarter was the outcome of government borrowing from the central bank for discretionary spending.
A proposal by the Central Insurance company of Iran for removing the payout cap on third-party auto insurance loss of expensive cars has been approved by the government and sent to the parliament.
Iran’s public transport fleet comprises around 430,000 vehicles, including urban and intercity buses, minibuses and taxis, of which 80% have outlived their usefulness, the National Traffic Police Chief said.
General Kamal Hadianfar added that the transportation fleet is entangled with public safety and health, so streamlining the sector should be placed high on the authorities’ agenda, ISNA reported.
“We need to overhaul the dilapidated vehicles and modernize the facilities. Unfortunately, the government has shown little willingness to take action,” he added.
Referring to the Clean Air Act, the official reminded that the government is legally obliged to renew the public transport fleet for reducing air pollution in metropolises.
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