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Iran Economy Update
Issue 31/2017 SUNDAY MARCH 5RD
Iran in talks over 25 petroleum contracts, worth $85 billion, with foreign companies The Study Center the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs held a conference titled
“JCPOA and Economy of Resistance” on Saturday. As one of the speakers at the conference, Petroleum Minister’s Deputy for International & Commercial Affairs Amir- Hossein Zamani-Nia declared that negotiations are underway over 25 petroleum-sector contracts that if lead to signing contracts, will result in the inflow of
$85 billion in investment, the daily Jahan-e Sanat wrote on Sunday. He also said that in the next two weeks, the full text of the new oil contracts known as IPC proposed to the Iranian and foreign companies will be made available. He also said that Iran’s revenues from exporting oil and condensates
amounted to about $34 billion in this Iranian year. “In the last month of 1395, we
exported 2.639 million barrels per day of oil and condensates,” said Zamani-Nia.
Japanese JCB cards to be activated in Iran next year: CBI official
In the wake of the elimination of sanctions, the CBI has started negotiations with four international payment operators namely Visa/MasterCard, Japanese JCB, and Chinese CUP but since the first two ones are of American origins, their activation in Iran will face limitations, ILNA wrote in a report on Saturday. Nasser Hakimi, the CBI’s director general for IT affairs told the news agency that the IT infrastructures have been prepared on the Iranian part and the standards have been complied “but the only main problem is that the foreign [American] party is still not ready to
establish relations with us and not willing to clinch deal with us.” He blamed the problem on the US primary sanctions and
underscored that it has nothing to do with deficiencies in the JCPOA. “As long as [primary] sanctions are in place, the activation of Master/Visa cards in Iran is impossible and the US government won’t allow this to happen,” added Hakimi, The CBI official however confirmed that the Japanese and Chinese firms have their own special payment operators that are not subject to the primary sanctions and negotiations continue with them. He estimated that such cards be activated by the next year in Iran. ILNA wrote that Japanese JCB cards can be used in South Eastern and European markets but are rarely applicable in North America.
Iranian and French Economy minister discuss banking issues
Iran’s Minister of Economic Affairs &
Finance Ali Tayyebnia and French Minister of Economy, Industry, & Digital Affairs Michel Sapin met in Tehran on Saturday afternoon and discussed developing
relations especially in banking sector, ILNA reported. “Today, we are one step further from our previous meetings with the French government, as today, banking relations have been established and now we are talking about reviving and emboldening relations of the central banks. In line with this objective, the French party has invited the Iranian CBI governor to visit France and discuss such issues,” said Ali Tayyebnia.
“We today also talked about the measures we’ve taken to reform the banking system in Iran and setting out regulations and anti- money-laundering standards in the country.
We underscored that based on the measures we developed, we expect to be permanently removed from the FATF’s non-
2 cooperative countries this June,” added the Iranian minister.
Michel Sapin told Tayyebnia that sufficient degree of trust exists between Iran and France and that “I will try to win the confidence of foreign banks to cooperate with Iran and I am sure that I will manage to do so.” "We can't work on developing our economic relations if we don't also
normalize our banking relations...financial circuits need to be normalized. It's our aim, our will -- even if it can't be done in a day,”
Sapin was quoted as saying by the AFP.
Also, ILNA wrote that the two ministers discussed mechanisms for the support of the French government and central bank from the French companies that engage in project implementation and finance in Iran.
As part of North-South corridor, the Astra-Astara rail network project was launched on trial basis
On Friday evening, a railway line between Iran’s northwestern city of Astara and an Azerbaijan city with the same line was launched on a trial basis, local media reported on Saturday. The trial inauguration ceremony of the Astara-Astara Railroad was held in the presence of Zaman Novruzov, the deputy chairman at Azerbaijan Railways and Yunes Ranjkesh, the governor of the Astara border city in Iran as well as
Jahanbakhsh Arman, the IRGC commander of the Astara region. The project of the railroad 8,5 km-long from the Azerbaijani side to the Iranian border is already performed and was at the final stage of a joint construction of the boundary 80-meter bridge.
One week before the trial inauguration ceremony, Azeri news agencies quoted Head of Railways of Azerbaijan Javid Gurbanov as saying that the international railroad Astara (Azerbaijan) – Astara (Iran) is an important link of the transport corridor
“North-South” that plays the main role in transit of freights to Europe. “Thanks to the special, priority arrangement in the region, a
rail line Astara-Astara will allow to expand economic cooperation between Azerbaijan and Iran,” Gurbanov told reporters. He said that the commissioning of this railway will significantly reduce delivery times of many export and import goods in Europe. The international railway line Astara-Astara will facilitate economic relations between the countries of the region, he said, adding that
“Goods arriving in the port of Bandar Abbas in the Persian Gulf will be transported further to Russia and Eastern Europe by the railway.” He said that besides Azerbaijan, Iran and Russia, the project will also benefit other countries. “Products from Europe, Finland, Russia, Georgia will be delivered much more quickly on the international railway”, – said Javid Gurbanov, that was being quoted as saying by the Azeri news agency ADY Express last week.
On 20 April 2016, a groundbreaking ceremony was held for construction of a railroad bridge over the Astara River on the Azerbaijani-Iranian border, Azerbaijan’s Trend news agency had reported. The ceremony was attended by the co-chairs of the Azerbaijan-Iran Joint Intergovernmental Commission for Economic, Trade and Humanitarian Cooperation - Azerbaijan's Economy Minister Shahin Mustafayev and Iran's Minister of Communications and Information Technology Mahmoud Vaezi.
The 80-meter bridge was one of the main parts of the project to connect the railways of Iran and Azerbaijan. Mahmoud Vaezi said during the ceremony that with the connection of the railway section from Rasht to Astara in Iran and thereon to Astara in Azerbaijan, a great overhaul will take place in the Iranian transportation sector. “With the launch of this rail transit network through the connection of the Ghazvin-Rasht and thereon Rash-to-Astara networks, the transfer of freights from the Persian Gulf to Russia, the Black Sea and Europe would become meaningful and the country’s North-South Corridor will become active,”
said Vaezi on April 20, 2016.
3 Source of the Map: Ministry of Road & Urban Development
Source of the Map: Central Asian countries accelerate the construction of the North-South Corridor - RailwayPro
Now that the construction of the 8.5-km, railroad bridge over the Astara River is complete by the Azerbaijan side to connect its railway link to the Iranian border, Iran started the 2.5-km rail-laying operation in the Islamic Republic territory, from the Astara border line to the city’s landing place, Khabar Online Persian news website
reported on Friday.
Iran ready to export 100,000 bpd of oil to South Africa
Petroleum Minister Bijan Zangeneh said that Iran is ready to export 100,000 bpd of crude oil to South Africa and is also ready
for purchasing shares of refineries in this country, Mehr news agency reported on Saturday. Bijan Zangeneh made the comments after meeting with Ms. Tina Joemat Pettersson, the South African politician and minister of Energy. He said that the main purpose of the visit of Ms.
Pettersson to Iran is making preparations for the upcoming visit of her country’s president to Tehran. Zangeneh also said that Iran and South Africa have renewed their negotiations on Gas-to-Liquid sector cooperation that had failed in the past rounds of talks over price disagreements.
