Iran has tremendous achievements in export of technical and engineering services. Photo by Ali Hassanpour

Iran’s Energy Minister Parviz Fattah, in his visit to Muscat refinery, highlighted Iran’s self-sufficiency in designing, building and exploiting dams and power plants, saying Iranian companies have also managed to win some international bids.
Fattah, after visiting the Muscat refinery, noted that Iran has tremendous achievements in exporting technical and engineering services. For such services he enumerated constructing wind power plants and repairing several refineries in Armenia and Syria, implementing Halab 6-kilometer long tunnel, constructing dams in Tajikistan as well as inking contracts for building dams and power plants in Iraq, Bangladesh and Mali.
“An Iranian company won an international bid to construct two 40 MW units in Muscat refinery at the cost of $90 million in 2006. The units are 68 percent complete now, which shows a suitable trend of progress,“ he explained.
Energy minister added that building two heat recovery boilers and a complete water sweetener unit is also among Iranian experts’ plans beside the power plants.
Fattah stated income generation, employment, export of technical and engineering services are the advantages of overseas industrial projects.
Iran is the first country in the field of dam and power plant construction in the region and ranks the third in the world.
Before the Islamic Revolution all the power projects were implemented by foreign contractors which means the whole design, supply of equipment, installation and operation tasks were done by them and the Iranians were not involved at all. It should be noted that projects in this field are really costly.
The 8-year Iraqi imposed war on Iran (1980-88), despite all the damages, was a good opportunity for achieving self sufficiency. Everything changed and the Iranians started the production of power equipments within the country by repairing the old projects.
The required technology for the transfer lines is thoroughly available at the present time and cables and other equipments are designed and produced in the country.
Recently the permit for overseas activities is given to the Iran Power Extension Organization which can make the country able to construct power plants abroad. He concluded that the construction of Najaf Ashraf is going to inaugurate soon by the Iran Power Extension Organization.

Mazandaran province has the capacity to export 400,000 tons of citrus per year, local official said on Monday.
According to IRNA, deputy head of Mazandaran Governor-General Office for Planning put the value of citrus production in Mazandaran province at 6,000 billion rials.
“Iran stands eighth and seventh in terms of producing fruits and the ground under cultivation respectively,“ Valiollah Farzaneh said.
Referring the upcoming Mazandaran Citrus Festival which will be held on January 2009, he added the event is organized by Agriculture Jihad Ministry, Fruit and Vegetable Union and Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Mines.
“Thanks to the suitable climate in Mazandaran, the province has the capacity to cultivate different kinds of fruits and vegetables,“ Farzaneh said.
He said Mazandaran province stands first in term of cultivating citrus across the country. “Some 42 percent of nationwide citrus production, 1.700 million tons, are cultivated in Mazandaran province,“ he added.

Iran is among the top ten countries in the world in terms of diversity of minerals, said deputy minister of industries and mines.
Referring to the significance of mines and mineral industries in Iran’s economy, Mohammad Massoud Samieinejad added that the country is one of the most important mineral producers in the world holding some 68 types of minerals, 37 billion tons of proven reserves and more than 57 billion tons of potential reservoirs, IRNA reported.
The share of the mining sector and mineral industries has increased to over five percent in GDP, providing 30 percent of the country’s employment.
Close to 30 percent of the country’s investment has been made in the field, he said, noting that 45 percent of the stock market also belongs to the mineral industries. The sector also accounts for 30 percent of the country’s exports.
According to the official, the mining goals of the Fourth Development Plan (2005-10) have been materialized by 107, 110, 116 percents from 2005 to 2007, respectively.
There are 5,019 mines which are active, inactive or in the state of being equipped and the rate of extraction from these mines stood at 217.5 million tons last year. More than 96,000 people are presently engaged in the mines sector, the deputy minister said, putting the number of operating mining units at 17,000.

Pistachio exports increased by 80,000 tons within the past three years, said Minister of Agriculture Jihad Mohammadreza Eskandari.
“The price of pistachio rose from $2.4 to $2.6 per kilo on the global market during the same period,“ he told IRNA.
He also rejected claims that Iran has lost its position in world markets, adding that close to 90 percent of saffron on global markets are also supplied by Iran.
“No country can take Iran’s place on global saffron markets,“ he said.
According to the official, close to 170 tons of saffron were produced in 2007. The figure dropped by 120 tons this year due to drought. After oil and carpets, pistachios are Iran’s biggest source of foreign currency, bringing in about $600 million a year. More than 350,000 people earn a living from the nut, most of them in vast groves of the desert oases in southeast. The bountiful harvests make Iran the largest exporter of pistachios in the world.
Iran now exports pistachios to 76 countries. The European Union, which is the main buyer of Iranian pistachios, has reported about Iranian farmers’ recent measures in hygienic production of pistachios.

Commerce Minister Massoud Mirkazemi has called for the formation of a national consortium for hand-woven carpet exports.
“Forming a national consortium would help the government secure the market for Persian carpets,“ said Mirkazemi at a Tehran seminar on Persian carpets.
“This way, the government can also financially support the participation of Iranian producers at carpet exhibitions abroad,“ he added.
According to ISNA, genuine Persian carpets have recently come under fierce competition from other countries that either produce fakes of the original Iranian designs or poor quality, cheaper substitutes.
Mirkazemi said Iran’s carpet exports have increased by 7 percent since March. However, he stressed that there must be a unified effort to increase Iran’s share in the world carpet trade.
The commerce minister also urged the private sector to increase its investment in the carpet industry.

The director of Industrial Development and Renovation Organization of Iran (IDRO) said IDRO subsidiaries--SAIPA and Iran Khodro--manufactured over 650,000 cars since March.
IRNA quoted Abbas Maleki Tehrani as saying that the figure shows a 6 percent increase on the same period last year.
IDRO public relations office reported that SAIPA accounts for 54 percent and Iran Khodro for 46 percent of the output.

An Export Development Bank of Iran (EDBI) executive said although sanctions have caused financial losses for the country business is still booming.
The Bush administration in late October imposed illegal financial sanctions on the EDBI for allegedly providing financial services to institutions helping develop Iran’s peaceful nuclear program.
“As you know we’ve been the subject of restrictions and sanctions, particularly those imposed by the US for years. But we have always managed to carry on with our activities as usual and even prosper in certain sectors,“ Kourosh Parvizian, chairman and managing director, told Reuters on Sunday.
Parvizian said that while the costs for insurance and letters of credit have increased the bank is still funding trade, business and projects in Latin America, Africa and Asia.
With assets of between $3 to $4 billion, the state-owned bank has a backlog of requests for financing worth $12 billion, he added.
Set up in 1991 to boost exports, EDBI finances various projects, including building cement plants in Venezuela and Syria. The bank has invested more than $29 million for the reconstruction of the Harat-Targhandi road in Afghanistan.
Troubled by a lack of speedy progress in the UN toward imposing economic sanctions on Iran over its civilian nuclear program, the US has stepped up efforts to persuade its allies to shun Iran’s financial system.
However, Europe has long taken a softer line toward Iran than the US, and has essayed a soft-power approach to its nuclear program, persisting with negotiations.

Iran cut 200,000 bpd from its output of around 4.04 million bpd in line with OPECÕs October agreement.

OPEC will cut oil output again if the trend towards lower prices and slowing demand growth are unchanged when the group meets in December.
Iran’s OPEC Governor Mohammad Ali Khatibi told Reuters on Sunday that the credit crisis and economic slowdown could shave as much as 3 million barrels per day (bpd) from global crude demand.
“If everything is the same and the trends continue like this then OPEC will have to do something,“ Khatibi said in an interview by telephone.
“We have to balance the market. Recent indications are that demand could have fallen by 2 to 3 million barrels per day. Stocks are rising.“

December Meeting
Oil dipped below $60 a barrel last week, the lowest since March 2007 and has tumbled nearly 60 percent from its July peak over $147.
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) agreed at an emergency meeting on Oct. 24 to chop production by 1.5 million bpd, or around 5 percent, to halt the price slide, but the cut has had little effect to date.
OPEC President Chakib Khelil said on Saturday the producer group would probably move to cut again at its December meeting if prices stayed low and members had fully met their existing pledges to reduce supply.
“Some members of OPEC would propose at the December meeting that the group look to maintain prices within a $20 range,“ Khatibi said.
That range could be either $70 to $90 per barrel or $80 to $100 per barrel, he added, declining to name the countries that would propose or support the price band or to say if Iran would support it.
Venezuela said last month it would propose OPEC adopt one of those two price bands. It has already proposed a further cut of another 1 million bpd in OPEC supply at the December meeting.

Impact on Investment
Khatibi said current prices were too low to encourage investment in unconventional oil projects such as oil sands and in expensive conventional oil projects in the deep sea.
“In the short-term, the crisis is affecting demand,“ Khatibi said. “But in the medium-term, this will affect supply. We need a price that will ensure we build capacity today to meet tomorrow’s demand.“
The Iranian governor noted that Iran’s plans to expand output were unaffected as it had neither deep sea nor unconventional projects.
“But if this continues, it will affect all producers, and Iran will be no exception“.
Oil companies are already reconsidering some projects that looked profitable when oil was higher. Iran, the world’s fourth-largest oil producer, has cut around 200,000 bpd from its output of around 4.04 million bpd in line with OPEC’s October agreement, an Iranian oil official said on Friday.
On Monday, oil rose more than $2 to over $63 a barrel, fueled by top exporter Saudi Arabia’s plans to cut December supplies to Asia, a weaker dollar and hopes that global economies’ plans to lift growth could avert recession.

Iran plans to design and manufacture upgraded Iran-140 aircraft capable of marine patrol and cargo transportation.
Majid Hedayat, the general manager of Iran’s Aerospatiale Industries Organization (AIO), told Fars news agency that the planes would be equipped with technology enabling the airplanes to undertake marine patrol missions.
In October, five domestically manufactured Iran-140 passenger planes were completed as part of a wider strategy to upgrade the Iranian air fleet and boost transport capacity.
The manufacturer of Iranian aircraft, HESSA, delivered the planes to the Islamic Republic’s Law Enforcement Agency (NAJA) and Iran Air Tour Airlines.
Iran officially introduced the first Iran-140 passenger airplane, built in partnership with Ukraine, into its aviation fleet in 2003.
Iran-140 is a double-engine turboprop aircraft able to seat 52 people and land on a dirt airstrip, which can fly almost 3,000 km (1,865 miles) before refueling.

New opportunities have been created in Iran for drawing foreign investments following the financial crisis in Europe and the US, said the deputy minister of economic affairs and finance.
Hamidreza Pour-Mohammadi also told Fars news agency that the plan to establish branches of foreign banks in Iran has been highly welcomed.
According to the deputy minister, the Central Bank of Iran has received many applications on launching branches of foreign banks in recent months.
He cited the official inauguration of Iran-Europe Commercial Bank in Tehran as an example.
With the notification of Article 44 of the Constitution (which seeks large-scale privatization), new opportunities have been created for investment in Iran.
“Banks interested in launching Islamic banking can also take the opportunity in Iran,“ he said.
Pour-Mohammadi noted that the country has prepared the grounds for foreigners to deposit their assets in Islamic banks.

Construction permits have been issued for 200,000 housing units under Mehr Housing Scheme, said housing minister.
Based on the scheme, applicants will be given land on a 99-year lease.
With the implementation of the scheme, the government is helping eliminate land price from the housing costs.
Housing Minister Mohammad Saeedikia recently announced that applicants residing in Tehran province can get the permit, Mehr news agency wrote.
The Central Bank of Iran and six agent banks, namely Maskan, Tejarat, Melli, Saderat, Refah and Mellat, are extending financial facilities for Mehr Housing Scheme.
Highlighting that only 3 percent of houses use prefabricated modules, he said this is meager.
“Policies have been recently adopted to industrialize housing construction,“ he added.
Iran’s Housing Research Center has approved over 30 new technologies for modernizing the housing sector in the past year.
“Over 80 construction firms have received permits for working in one of these technologies,“ he said.
Saeedikia predicted that prefab houses would rise to 20 percent by the end of fifth five-year economic development plan (2015).

The 10th International Conference on Rail Transport will be held in Tehran during November 17-18, Iranian Association of Rail Transport Engineering’s Secretary Abolfazl Bahredar said. “The two-day meeting is aimed at promoting scientific, technological and engineering know-how in the country’s railroad network,“ he told IRNA.
Minister of Roads and Transportation Hamid Behbahani, representatives from Europe and Central Asia, Iranian and foreign university professors, Majlis Development Commission members, private sector entities and other high-ranking officials will attend the event.
Bahredar also said that more than 400 articles have been sent to the conference secretariat, compared to last year’s 350, on rail transport economy and management, infrastructure, installations, locomotives and rail carriages.
Officials from the International Union of Public Transport have also been invited.
The 3rd International Railroad Industry Fair will also be held concurrently with the conference.

Iranian and Sri Lankan officials on Saturday studied ways to develop economic cooperation to thwart the negative impacts of global financial crisis.
Iran’s Minister of Economy and Finance Shamseddin Hosseini and Sri Lankan Minister of Tourism Milinda Moragoda discussed the issue in Tehran, according to ISNA.
The Iranian minister said that many economies are interdependent and that the US financial crisis can create enormous problems for them all.
“Contrary to anti-Iran propaganda and sanctions, Sri Lanka is expected to boost cooperation in trade and financial fields. Joint development projects worth more than $1.5 billion are an indication that bilateral ties between the two countries are growing,“ Hosseini added.
Moragoda also called for expansion of bilateral ties and closer cooperation.
The Sri Lankan tourism minister leading a four-member delegation arrived in Tehran Saturday to attend the 2nd International Conference on Investment Opportunities in Iran’s Tourism Industry.

Firms from Iran’s northwestern province of West Azarbaijan are to hold a five-day exhibition in Iraq’s Kurdish city of Dahouk, Dahouk’s Chamber of Commerce said.
Ayad Hassan, the chamber’s head, told IRNA that more than 70 firms from Azarbaijan will attend the event. “The firms have shipped products to their pavilions. The exhibition is an opportunity to boost bilateral trade with Iran.“
Azarbaijan borders Iraqi Kurdish areas and ties between Iraqi Kurds and Azarbaijan have traditionally been smooth and strong. Hassan said the exhibition will officially open later this month. Besides the Azarbaijani firms, the organizers expect attendance by state-run Iranian corporations as well.
According to him, the Iraqi Kurdish province of Dahouk has no borders with Iran but its chamber has developed very good relations with the Iranian province.
Iraqi Kurdish province of Sulaimaniya has long borders with Iran as well as the Kurdish province of Arbil, whose provincial capital bearing the same name is currently the seat of the Kurdish regional government.
Iran has even stronger ties with Sulaimaniya where its companies are involved in development projects costing millions of dollars. Sulaimaniya imports more goods from Iran than any other country trading with the Iraqi Kurdish region.
In Dahouk, Iranian goods and products are also plentiful but the province has traditionally been a good market for both Turkish and Chinese goods. Hassan said the exhibition is an opportunity to lure firms to the province and not just goods.

Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari called for an early start of a multi-billion-dollar pipeline project planned to take Iran’s gas to Pakistan and India. Stating that Pakistan is in dire need of energy, Zardari told Iranian Ambassador Mashallah Shakeri that every effort must be made to activate the project.
According to Fars news agency, Ambassador Shakeri briefed Zardari on the developments made so far on the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline project, and discussed ways to enhance bilateral trade and investment.
Zardari said Pakistan valued its relations with Iran and the two countries held common positions on several international and regional issues.
Iran and Pakistan initiated a Gas Sales Purchase Agreement earlier this year. Indian and Pakistani officials also announced that they have resolved almost all bilateral issues including transit fee which saw New Delhi boycotting IPI talks for about a year.