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Western Iran’s Biggest Silo Operational
Iran’s first all-metal silo, the largest in the west of the country, was inaugurated in Qorveh, Kurdestan province, on Wednesday.
Minister of Commerce Masoud Mirkazemi, Kurdestan province Governor General Esmaeil Najar, and a group of provincial officials and governmental bodies were present in the inauguration ceremony of the 85,000-ton silo, ISNA reported.
Iran has notable potentials in the agriculture sector, Mirkazemi said adding, “Through infrastructural development in this sector the country can become a hub for trade in agricultural products in the region.
“To this end, many positive steps have been taken by the ninth government such as increasing production, expanding storage areas, and facilitating surplus exports to regional countries.“
The silo was built in eight months at a cost of $4.5 million.
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Investment Funds Profitable
The average efficiency of investment funds in the capital market has reached 26 percent three months after they began operations, said head of the Bourse Organization’s Office for Monetary Bodies Affairs.
Reza Kiani explained that the value of eight investment funds reached 91.6 billion rials after over three months, Fars News Agency reported.
Investment funds of Sahm Ashna, Nahayat Negar and Pishtaz grew by 40, 34 and 28 percent respectively after 69, 97 and 48 days respectively until July 2.
They provided the highest earnings for their investors, he noted.
The growth in net asset value of investment funds has attracted many investors, the official underlined.
About 474 and 34 real and legal entities respectively have invested in these funds, Kiani pointed out.
Pishtaz investment fund with 241 real investors and Bank Saderat Brokerage Investment Fund with 14 real investors took the first and last places in the list of investment funds, he concluded.
The funds, which operate in the stock exchange with a minimum capital of five billion rials and maximum 50 billion rials, include Sahm Ashna, Hafez, Nahayat Negar, Saderat Bank and Khobregan investment funds.
Investment fund, which are variably called managed fund, mutual fund or simply fund, is a way of investing money with other people to participate in a wider range of investments than may be feasible for an individual investor, and to share the costs of doing so.
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Businessmen Meet Deputy FM
A number of Iranian businessmen in Armenia conferred with Deputy Foreign Minister Alireza Sheikh- Attar in Yerevan on Wednesday.
According to the report of Iran’s Embassy in Armenia, Ambassador Ali Saqqaeian while appreciating the Iranian business community presented a report on business activities in Armenia, reported IRNA.
Some of the Iranian businessmen elaborated on the problems and obstacles in conducting trade and business in Armenia.
The deputy foreign minister, for his part, said, “Developing trade ties is among ways of consolidating bilateral relations among countries.“
Sheikh-Attar promised to discuss the problems with Armenian officials as well as authorities in Iran.
The official has been in Yerevan since Tuesday and has held meetings with Armenian prime minister and foreign minister.
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Ties With Ghana Flourishing
The Iranian government has begun formal procedures to establish a commercial bank in Ghana. It has asked the Ghana National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GNCCI) for support in pursuing relevant procedures and guidelines for the acquisition of a banking license from the Bank of Ghana.
According to Graphicghana.com, the universal bank is expected to be the conduit through which the Iranian government would make substantial investments in other sectors of the economy, particularly agriculture, food processing, aviation and construction.
The President of the Ghana National Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Wilson Atta Krofah, stated this at the 526th meeting of the Accra Regional Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Accra on Thursday.
The monthly meeting of the chamber is to facilities interaction among members.
He said that a business exploration trip by the chamber to Iran last May revealed significant business opportunities for the two countries, and added that Iran was also ready to undertake a joint Iranian-Ghanaian private partnership in cement, salt, iron rod production, the establishment of a vehicle assembly plant and the processing of cocoa beans, fish, shea butter and sunflower.
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Iran is ready to undertake joint private partnership with Ghana in cement, salt and iron rod production, establishment of a vehicle assembly plant and the processing of cocoa beans, fish, shea butter and sunflower.
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The GNCCI president consequently encouraged members of the chamber to take advantage of the opportunities offered by oil-rich Iran to Ghanaian entrepreneurs to promote their businesses.
Krofah said that the Iranians were also interested in the construction of low cost housing and provision of agricultural machinery and equipment such as tractors, tillers and combine harvesters.
Krofah further stated that the Iranian government also expressed its readiness to establish a trade center in Ghana to distribute its products in the country.
“The interesting aspect of the deal is that Iran is also ready to open up its economy to Ghanaian business men and women to explore,“ Krofah stated.
He said an implementation committee made up of the GNCCI, the Ministries of Finance, Trade and Agriculture and export guarantee companies had been put in place to work towards implementing some of the immediate requests of the Iranians for the benefit of the two countries.
Krofa said all the businesses the Iranians were prepared to establish here in Ghana would be under partnership with Ghanaian businessmen and that Ghanaians should take the opportunity to expand their businesses.
He further stated that the GNCCI was also working towards reviving the Federation of West Africa Chamber of Commerce and Industry to facilitate the integration of West African businesses with the view of removing all forms of trade barriers between West African countries. Ghana and Iran have signed a number of agreements and memoranda of understanding at the end of their Third Session of the Permanent Joint Commission of Cooperation in Tehran in May 2008.
This followed a visit to Iran by Akwasi Osei-Adjei, minister of foreign affairs, regional integration and NEPAD, from May 20-23 this year.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, expressed his country’s readiness to expand cooperation with Ghana in all the sectors negotiated, under the framework of the Joint Commission for Cooperation.
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Larijani Supports Entrepreneurs
Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani said that the parliament is ready to support the private sector and remove cumbersome investment laws. Making the statement in a meeting with Head of Iran’s Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Mines Mohammad Nahavandian, he further said that some laws were ratified in the past under certain conditions and should not be considered absolute. “We can change them by taking the current circumstances into consideration,“ he said, according to IRNA.
Larijani said that the Majlis is ready to support the private sector assume a role in managing the national economy.
He called on them to work together with Majlis Economic Commission to identify obstructive laws and propose helpful ones. “We should approve economic laws, using logic and ideas to remove challenges facing the sector,“ he said.
Referring to Majlis’ willingness to support the implementation of the outlines of Article 44 of the Constitution, which seeks large-scale privatization, he said that today the resolve to transfer sections of the economy to the private sector prevails in the country. “If we want to administer justice, we should revive competence in the society.“
Criticizing hasty decisions in certain fields, he also said that the Majlis should strengthen its supervisory role because some laws are ignored.
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Private Power Plants Can Supply 30,000 MW
Energy Ministry has worked strenuously to draw up programs for using the capacities of the private sector in power plant construction, said managing director of Power Equipment Manufacturing and Procurement Company (SATKAB), Mehr news agency wrote.
Mohammad Reza Attarzadeh said that private power plants are capable of supplying 30,000 megawatts of electricity to the power network if they are given financial assistance from Oil Stabilization Fund.
He hoped that that the power plants would begin operation gradually from next March.
Attarzadeh stated that once privatized, SATKAB will continue to grant financial incentives to private companies. The official said that SATKAB will grant 600 billion rials in loans, with a 10-percent interest rate, to companies which increased production or employed new workforce after privatization.
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Caviar Export Quota Lowered
Iran has voluntarily reduced its caviar export quota amid concerns about dwindling sturgeon population in the Caspian Sea.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran has opted for a voluntary cut of its export quota by one ton this year,“ said director of Iran’s Sturgeon Research Institute, Mohammad Pourkazemi.
“To protect the Caspian sturgeon stock, Iran has restricted its caviar export quota from 43 tons to 42 tons in 2008,“ the Iranian official told IRIB.
Pollution, over-fishing, poaching and smuggling has dangerously reduced Caspian sturgeon stock, since it targets reproductive females.
“Caviar export quotas set for the five Caspian littoral states were about 92 tons last year and decreased to 91 tons this year due to the voluntary reduction of quota by Iran,“ Pourkazemi said.
Over 90 percent of the world’s caviar is produced in the Caspian Sea and is harvested by Iran, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Russia.
The quota is set by the Secretariat of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, an international body that governs trade in endangered species.
Iranian scientists estimate that sturgeon could become extinct within 14 years unless poaching is checked.
Environmentalists have described Iran as ’the shining star of sturgeon management in the Caspian’ as the country made considerable efforts to preserve the species by releasing thousands of sturgeons into the sea each year.
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Steel Output Up
Iran’s steel production capacity will increase to 15 millions tons in the year to March 2009, said Minister of Industries and Mines Ali Akbar Mehrabian.
He added that domestic steel production stood at 10.5 million tons in March 2008.
First Wind Turbine
Construction of the country’s first private wind turbine began in Zahak, Sistan-Baluchestan province in a ceremony attended by Minister of Science, Research and Technology Mohammad Mehdi Zahedi on Thursday.
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ECB Pressed Over Strong Euro
European aerospace bosses met on Thursday with Jean-Claude Trichet, head of the European Central Bank, to voice concern over the surge in the value of the euro against the dollar, an industry body said.
EADS boss Louis Gallois, Rainer Ott, chairman of the German group Diehl, and Francois Gayet of the Aerospace and Defense Industries Association of Europe (ASD) “expressed their deep concern regarding the impact on their industry of the rapid and extreme fluctuations of the US dollar compared to the euro“, according to a statement distributed by ASD, AFP reported.
Trichet invariably responds to questions about the euro’s strength by noting that US authorities including Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and President George W. Bush say that a ’strong dollar’ is in US interest.
Europe’s aviation and defense industry warned last week of possible job losses caused by the euro’s rise in value against the dollar, with ASD head Ake Svensson saying that ’each 10 cent devaluation of the US dollar against the euro produces a loss of margin of one billion euros to major companies’.
The companies, for the most part, have their costs billed in euros but often sell their products in dollars. On Thursday, the single European currency traded for $1.5703 in London. The euro hit a historic peak of 1.6019 on April 22.
Time Right for Asian Integration
The time is right for Asian nations to look at financial integration, the Asian Development Bank said in a new study, stressing the benefits for promoting growth and reducing poverty. It said financial cooperation could also help provide a buffer against shocks that have rocked world markets in recent months, if governments worked together to cooperate on policy, AFP said.
While cooperation has increased markedly since the 1997 Asian financial crisis, the Manila-based bank said it was an ’immediate priority’ to bolster supervision and surveillance of markets in the region.
“Asia’s macroeconomic policy settings currently show little evidence of cooperation--the region’s strong and stable macroeconomic results in recent years reflect, in part, a favorable global environment,“ it said.
“Eventually, Asian economies may have a single market with common regulations, a common currency, and substantial freedom of movement for workers,“ the bank said. “But immediate policy requires both a long-term vision and pragmatic initiatives that will show early, step-by-step results.“
It said low trade barriers and well-developed transport and communications links had driven regional integration of production, attracting global investment and leading to Asia’s emergence as a global manufacturing leader with China as the main hub.
No End to US Mortgage Trouble
US mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are facing growing pressure as fears intensify about a potential calamity at the firms, which underpin trillions of dollars in home loans.
On Thursday, Freddie Mac shares plunged 22 percent to eight dollars, and are down over 40 percent this week and 75 percent this year. Fannie Mae sank 14 percent to $13.20, down 26 percent in the week and 64 percent for the year.
“The twin titans of lending both face pessimism, from the options pits and analysts,“ said Mark Fightmaster at Schaeffer’s Investment Research.
Analysts at Charles Schwab & Co. said the shares were roiled by “sobering comments about the solvency of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.“
One research note this week said the two firms may have to raise tens of billions of dollars in fresh capital under new accounting rules to offset massive losses in their home loan portfolios.
A report in the Wall Street Journal said the Bush administration has held talks about what to do in the event the two firms falter. The daily said the discussions have been going on for months as part of normal contingency planning but had become more serious recently.
China Leading Infrastructure Revolution in Africa
China may be accused of placing business above human rights in Africa but the World Bank says in a new report that the Asian giant is spearheading a massive infrastructure revolution in the continent critical to reducing poverty, Zee News said.
China, India, and a few Middle Eastern Persian Gulf nations are financing an unprecedented number of infrastructure projects across Sub-Saharan Africa--both in scale and the focus on large infrastructure projects, said the report by the Washington-based bank.
Investment commitments in Africa by these emerging financiers jumped from less than one billion dollars per year before 2004 to eight billion dollars in 2006, signaling a growing trend in cooperation among developing economies, the report said.
“Today, China’s growing infrastructure commitments in Africa are helping to address the huge infrastructure deficit of the continent,“ said Obiageli Katryn Ezekwesili, the World Bank’s vice president for the Africa region as he launched the report.
Entitled ’Building bridges: China’s growing role as infrastructure financier for Sub-Saharan Africa’, the report said new infrastructure partnerships in the region were being driven by strong economic growth, improved business-friendly climate and rising demand for commodities from growth drivers China and India.
Total Withdrawal Irrelevant to SP Development
Iran on Thursday played down the loss of Total of France, which this week became the final large western energy company to pull back from investing in the country’s huge South Pars gas field development project.
Oil Minister Gholamhossein Nozari said, “This is our message: we will proceed with development with or without them.“
Akbar Torkan, deputy oil minister for planning, said Iran could shift some longer-term liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects in South Pars--the world’s biggest gas field--to ones that instead export gas through pipelines. This is a popular option within Iran’s oil and gas industry.
He said, “We can construct the pipeline in our land with our investments to reach the border, while Europeans, like Austria and Switzerland, can do the same from their lands to reach Iran’s borders without facing investment obstacles.“
On Thursday, Total’s chief executive Christophe de Margerie said that the French energy giant will not be investing in Iran because it is too risky. “Today we would be taking too much political risk to invest in Iran because people will say: ’Total will do anything for money’,“ De Margerie told Financial Times.
Total was to invest in a project to develop Phase 11 of Iran’s South Pars gas field along with Malaysia’s Petronas but pulled out of the major LNG deal under political pressure, reported Presstv.
South Pars, which is shared by Iran and Qatar, is one the world’s largest natural gas fields. According to Iran’s Pars Special Economic Energy Zone, the field contains nearly 48 percent of Iran’s proven reserves.
Total is the third company to withdraw from projects in Iran under pressure from Washington, after Royal Dutch Shell and Repsol YPF of Spain.
Iran, OPEC’s second largest exporter, plans to replace the three European conglomerates that have withdrawn from its energy development projects with domestic and Asian corporations.
Joint Bank With Syria
Iran and Syria have agreed to set up a joint bank in the Syrian capital, with an initial capital of $30 million.
The agreement was reached in a meeting between Iran’s Housing Minister Mohammad Saeedikia, the Syrian Minister of Economy and Trade Amer Hosni Lutfi and the governor of the Central Bank of Syria, Adib Mayaleh, Presstv reported.
Saeedikia said that some 49 percent of the shares of the bank belong to Iran’s Bank Saderat and 51 percent to Syria.
He noted that the Iran-Syria bank will provide services to Iranian investors, businesspersons and pilgrims.
Meanwhile, Saeedikia said that commercial exchanges between Iran and Syria are insufficient and should be increased.
Speaking in a meeting of Iran-Syria Economic Commission in Damascus attended by Hosni Lutfi, he further said that commercial transactions reached $180 million in 2006 and $340 million in 2007 but despite a sharp rise, the figures are far from satisfactory.
He pointed out that the two countries are in a position to step up cooperation.
Lutfi, for his part, said given the high level of political relations between the two countries as well as the number of Iranian pilgrims visiting Syria, economic exchanges are insufficient and should be increased.
Stressing the need to make economic ties match political ties, he said that solving the problems calls for strong resolve and efforts by both sides.
Zanjan Hosts Oil, Energy Expo
The Second International Oil and Energy Exhibition was inaugurated on Thursday with the participation of 50 companies.
Exhibition manager, Babak Nematollahi told IRNA that representatives of a number of domestic and foreign firms from China, Malaysia and Germany are taking part in the exhibition.
Latest products and achievements in the fields of oil, gas petrochemical as well as electricity and the related industries, new and alternative energies, optimization of energy consumption and consumption management are on display at the three-day expo, Nematollahi said accessing the latest innovations in the field of energy and related industries, getting acquainted with modern technology of advanced industrial countries and paving the way for private sector to participate in the implementation of the related projects are among the main objectives of the exposition.
The exhibition which is being held in the Caspian International Fairground of Zanjan, will end on Saturday.
Pak Senator Pushes for IPI Deal
Chairman of Pakistan Senate Standing Committee on Petroleum and Natural Resources Senator Dilawar Abbas on Thursday criticized India for delaying Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline mega project and urged the government to sign the agreement even without India, Daily Times reported.
He was talking to media persons after the meeting of the senate body on petroleum that met in Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL) office.
Abbas warned that gas reserves in Pakistan would be depleted by 2012 and there would be no gas in the country. “India is delaying the IPI gas pipeline in one way or the other,“ he said, adding, “Pakistan should go ahead on the gas pipeline project even without India.“
He hoped the signing of the project will take place during the current year.
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