TEHRAN, Sept. 10--Governor of the Central Bank of Iran Ebrahim Sheibani announced on Saturday that leasing companies will soon come under CBI control.
According to Fars news agency, Sheibani said the initiative aims at ensuring these credit institutions fulfill their commitments in the best interest of their customers.
“Leasing companies exist to safeguard the interest of the middle and lower income class by helping to improve their purchasing power though in Iran they offer their products through loans with unreasonably high profit rates.“
The CBI governor referred to leasing companies as a kind of banking institutes which have so far escaped CBI supervision, giving them a free hand to impose high profit rates on loans.

Iran used to be the world's largest wheat importer until a few years ago.

TEHRAN, Sept. 10--Minister of Agriculture Jihad Mohammad-Reza Eskandari has praised the previous administration’s supportive efforts for the farming sector and said a lot more needs to be done to stimulate further growth in this strategic area.
Eskandari said a series of measures are underway to expedite agricultural development schemes, ISNA reported on Saturday.
He was speaking at ceremonies to introduce his deputies for planning and economy, development of human resources, parliamentary affairs, as well as horticulture.
The minister added a spring drought in 23 provinces as well as unexpected cold and heat waves in some regions hindered dry cultivation of wheat, though as a result of precautionary measures taken by the government, wheat output will be higher than that of last year.
“The government is expected to purchase more than 11 million tons of wheat from farmers by the end of the current crop season which is lower than the figure stipulated in the comprehensive wheat program obliging the state to buy up to 12.14 million tons of wheat.“
Iran announced last year it was self-sufficient in wheat production after 40 years. The country used to be the world’s largest wheat importer until a few years ago.
The government allocates huge amounts of subsidies for wheat and flour, which has resulted in excessive consumption of the products.
The Commerce Ministry announced a few months ago that at least 30 percent of total wheat, flour and bread production is wasted, inflicting losses of five trillion rials to the national economy per annum.
High subsidies allocated for basic goods, particularly wheat, are not in the interest of the economy and welfare, he said, adding that wheat subsidies account for 22 trillion rials of the total 40 trillion rials worth of subsidies allocated for basic goods.

TEHRAN, Sept. 10--National Iranian Drilling Company (NIDC) and South Pars Gas and Oil Company signed an agreement, worth $307 million, for drilling phases IX and X of the South Pars development project, NIDC’s managing director, Seifollah Jashnsaz said.
In an interview with Mehr news agency he said that the two sides held protracted negotiations before finalizing the deal.
The official added that since the price was the most important factor for prolongation of the talks, NIDC agreed to conduct drilling operations at the cost quoted by Halliburton, the winner of the tender.
Jashnsaz said that Halliburton won the drilling tender with the proposal of $307 million and NIDC stood second with $340 million.
He noted that 22 wells will be drilled in the project, adding NIDC has so far drilled 2,000 wells in the Persian Gulf.
He concluded that the acting oil minister, Vaziri Mahaneh and managing director of National Iranian Oil Company played very important role in this regard.
Giant US company Halliburton was awarded the giant project earlier this year, but quietly pulled out under mounting pressure from Washington.
South Pars, which is believed to be the world’s largest gas field, is shared by Iran and Qatar. It is estimated to hold almost 14.2 tcm of gas--equal to seven percent of the world’s total and 38.6 percent of Iran’s reserves.

TEHRAN, Sept. 10--Fruit and vegetable exporters are sustaining huge losses due to inadequate dissemination of information on the outbreak of cholera in some parts of Iran prompting most Persian Gulf littoral states to refuse to import Iran’s farm products, said Head of Trade Development Organization Mojtaba Khosrowtaj on Saturday.
Khosrowtaj said that the fatal disease has affected only those farmlands which use surface waters though government officials and experts continue to issue warnings about consumption of products irrigated with underground water resources. He called on the government to pay compensations to farmers.
Cholera outbreak has paralyzed local economies in areas where the majority of the people depend on farming for livelihood.
Sales of agro products, particularly vegetables blamed for the killer disease, have declined significantly in most parts of the country.
A cholera outbreak and a government ban on cultivating and selling green vegetables have inflicted losses to the tune of at least $55.5 million (44.5 million euro) to farmers, the Agriculture Ministry was quoted as saying by AFP in August.
Official figures further showed a small rise in the number of reported cholera cases, with eight deaths and 626 infections in the past month. Health Ministry officials said the outbreak has affected 15 out of Iran’s 30 provinces.
In mid-August, the Health Ministry banned the cultivation and distribution of green vegetables for the next two months. State television has also warned people to avoid consuming vegetables and ice sold on the street and many restaurants have been banned from serving salads.

TEHRAN, Sept. 10--Iranian Offshore Engineering and Construction Company will in November deliver 48-inch pipes to lay the 22-km under-sea pipeline which will be installed in the sea off Paradip port in the Bay of Bengal, east of India.
A report faxed to Iran Daily on Saturday by the company’s public relations office quoted project manager, Mohammad Esmael Karachian, as saying that a platform will be set up in the area where the pipelines will be laid.
“This is Iran’s first overseas experience in laying a pipeline stretching from onshore installation to offshore area. The first domestic experience in such a project was the laying of a 105-km 48-inch pipeline in South Pars gas field for feeding refineries.“
Karachian said undesirable weather conditions, delays on the part of the employer in fulfilling its commitments and technical problems occurring with the platform are among the reasons for delayed implementation of the project.
The contract was awarded to Iran by Indian Oil Corporation which covers handling large crude carriers with full load, initially for transporting crude by pipeline to Haldia refinery and subsequently meets the requirement of the 12-mtpa capacity Paradip refinery as and when it comes up. IOC is still to start the work on the Paradip-Haldia crude pipeline.
The work on the under-sea pipeline, according to Paradip Port Trust (PPT) sources, is to begin in January and take about six months to complete, provided everything goes as planned.
Paradip port, which does not handle any crude traffic at present, hopes to start handling the same through the SBM, an estimated five million tons in 2005-06 and 15 million tons in a full year of operation. At present, the port handles only petroleum products estimated at 1.4 million tons annually.

TEHRAN, Sept. 10--A number of Persian Gulf littoral states have placed orders for Iranian carpets, announced the managing director of Iran’s Carpet Joint Stock Company.
Speaking to Fars news agency, Mohammad-Ali Karimi said on Saturday that Iran has signed several agreements with Persian Gulf littoral states including Qatar, Bahrain, the UAE and Saudi Arabia on the export of Iran’s world-famous rugs.
“Both the private and state sectors are involved,“ he said, without giving details about the value of the deal or the time of delivery.
The news agency further reported that Iran has recently received an order from Oman’s Sultan Qaboos for weaving a uniquely designed hand-woven carpet.
The rug, which measures up to 390 square meters and totals almost 460 square meters with the borders included, will take two and half years to weave in Isfahan.
Karimi said the deal was a groundbreaking event which raises the prospects of Iranian carpets regaining former status in the global market.
Iran’s hand-woven carpet has long been the government’s second source of revenues after oil. However, the industry has in recent years suffered setbacks to the extent that many today claim Iran has lost its outstanding position in the global carpet markets.
Given that the carpet industry is a major foreign exchange earner and a vital sector in Iran’s fragile economic system, a slump in the industry would lead to unemployment and cost the government hugely.
Akbar Harischian, who heads Persian Carpet Exporters Association, told ISNA recently that Iran’s carpet exports have declined significantly in the past months, blaming high inflation rate.
Iran Carpet Center experts are working on the Comprehensive Persian Carpet Scheme, which aims to organize and promote fine rugs in international markets.

Iran is one of the world's largest producers of ornamental flora.

TEHRAN, Sept. 10--Iran’s Customs Administration has put the value of flower exports during 2004 at $1.5 million contradicting some reports which put the actual figure at almost $25 million.
Managing Director of Iran Decorative Flowers Department Mohammad Kiyaie said the ICA’s export assessments are based on the Foreign Currency Revenues Declaration, according to which export rates are much lower than the actual figure.
Kiyaie added in the first quarter of the current Iranian year (March-May), the area under flora cultivation in Iran increased to 60,033 hectares, which shows a rise of almost 250 hectares compared to the figure for the same period a year earlier.
The official further noted that almost 43 percent of greenhouse units have been allocated to flower cultivation and the rest to vegetables.
Iran is one of the world’s largest producers of ornamental flora. However poor marketing techniques and an outdated packaging system have reduced to a minimum the country’s share of the international flora trade. Estimates suggest Iran ranks 17th worldwide in terms of total area under cultivation of decorative flowers, but is 107th as far as annual export revenue is concerned.
Iran exports an average of $1.5 million worth of cut-branches of decorative flowers per annum. The Netherlands with $2.1 billion and Colombia with $525 million are the world’s largest exporters of flowers. The entire global flora trade is worth eight billion dollars.
Experts believe that exports could grow by 30 percent in the year to March 2006, if the private sector manages to modernize the greenhouses in cooperation with the Ministry of Agriculture Jihad.
Five billion rials will be required to modernize each hectare of traditional greenhouses.
This is while a considerable amount of horticultural products are wasted each year with the use of traditional cultivation methods.