Economic news in brief (Apr. 4)

Esfarayen mill to export over 10,000 tons of steel this year

ESFARAYEN, North Khorasan Prov. – Annual exports from the giant Esfarayen Industrial Complex is set to move up by 200 percent in the new Iranian year (started March 21).

The steel plant of the complex will export 10,200 tons of steel products during the said period, noted the managing director of the complex, putting the estimated value of this volume at about 12.7 million euros. More than 3,000 tons of steel products were exported from the Esfarayen Industrial Complex in the last Iranian year (ended March 20, 2006). “That brought us some €1.9 million,” the company official stated. The Esfarayen-based plant exports steel alloys to Germany, India, and Italy. The $165m plant was built in cooperation with Austria and Czech Republic.

ITMC annual exports hit $30m

TEHRAN – Iran Tractor Manufacturing Company (ITMC) exported some 30 million dollars of its products in the last Iranian year.

During the same period, the Tabriz-based company sold 816 tractors to Sudan for 10 million dollars. Meanwhile, Venezuela bought some 966 of ITMC’s tractors for 14 million dollars.

Private sector starts construction of power plant in Yazd

YAZD – The Iranian private sector will build its first power plant in the current Iranian year, a local power company official stated.

“The construction plan, which is a build-own-operate (BOO) project, will start this year in Yazd,” Torabi said, claiming they would try to reduce power outages across Yazd Province by 10 percent in the same period.

Exports from Semnan up 95%

SEMNAN – Head of the Semnan Customs Department said yesterday that the province exported some 40,258 tons of goods worth 25.23 million dollars in the last Iranian year.

“This corroborated 95% increase in terms of value,” he noted, implying that detergents, industrial machinery, bio-fertilizers, minerals, and motorbikes were exported to Italy, Afghanistan, Germany, China, Ukraine, Kuwait, and Iraq. Semnan Customs also registered import of more than 3,300 tons of commodities at $7.24 million during the same period.

Price increases affect Iran-Turkey railway ties: Turk official

TEHRAN – A Turk railway official told an IRNA reporter in Tabriz on Tuesday that soaring railroad transportation costs is discouraging more Iranian and Turk tradesmen from doing business via connecting railroads.

Speaking at the 26th meeting of the railway officials from Iran’s Azarbaijan and the Turkish province of Malatya, the Turk official pointed to those costs as a main factor that caused a dramatic slump in the volume of bilateral trade in 2005 compared to the 2004 figures.

Yazd yearly exports increased by 63%

YAZD – Some 152,104 tons of goods, valued at $131.6 million, was exported from this central province during the last Iranian year (ended March 20, 2006).

This showed 63 percent increase (in terms of value) in comparison with the previous figures. Also in the same period, Yazd imported more than 21,400 tons of various commodities worth 950 billion rials to set 47 percent growth in terms of weight.

ER/MA

END

MNA