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Speaking to ILNA, Bahram Shakouri pointed to the role of ambassador in developing trade ties and said that Iran, in an important country like Japan, has no trade ambassador while these envoys can play important roles in broadening trade relations although Iran with having embassies and ambassadors in many countries has failed to take important actions for advancing broadening of trade its.

He added that Japan is one of the economic poles of the world and Iranian government should attach more importance to relation with Japan because Japan can replace European countries and the U.S. in the field of knowledge and technology transfer.

Shakouri went on to say that Toyota Company produces over 10m cars per year that 75% of its products are offered in the international markets. He added that the U.S. and Europe are themselves car manufacturers but since the price and quality of Asian cars especially the Japanese are good and suitable, the demands for purchase of Japanese cars exist in the European and the U.S. markets.

He stated that Japanese auto-makers can invest in Iran or export cars to Iran, adding that materialization of this will be possible when Iran improves the course of interactions with the world, and without any doubt, reforming ties will lead to broadening trade ties with Japan and at the current condition, Iran cannot import cars from Japan directly.

Shakouri then pointed to the joint investment of the Japanese with Americans and said that keeping the trade relations with the U.S. is important for the Japanese because the U.S. is the biggest trade partner of the Japanese and most of Japanese products are sold in the U.S. market and therefor trade with the U.S. is more important than with Iran for the Japanese.

He admitted due to the sanctions on Iran, the Japanese are currently not interested in trade with Iran but it is possible for Iran to import cars via the third party country.

He said that that the industry ministry has set condition for import of cars and there should be representative of the companies for the after sales services and this condition will almost zero the chance of presence of the foreign car manufacturers in Iran in the sanctions era and this condition means that Iran can only import cars from China and Russia.

Shakouri added that the trade volume of Iran and Japan is currently below $30m and noted that Iran’s trade relation with Japan dates back to over 90 years and Japanese are interested in working with Iran but traders first think about their profits and since their profits in trade with the U.S. is more than trade with Iran, it is natural they choose the U.S. and Iran can import required equipment via the third party countries.

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The post Iran’s Car Production Increases by 53% appeared first on Iran News Daily.

IRAN NEWS ECONOMIC DESK

TEHRAN – Acting Minister of Industry, Mine and Trade Hossein Modarres Khiabani says the car production in the first four months of the current year has grown by 19 percent and after two years, the car industry has come out of negative growth.

Speaking to IRNA, Modarres Khiabani said that after pullout of French and South Korean auto-makers and reimposition of the U.S. sanctions, nobody thought that Iran could continue its way but the industry has planned to produce 1.2m cars by the yearend.

He added that last year, 831,234 vehicles were produced in the country which shows 13 percent decline comparing to the preceding year.

Modarres Khiabani reiterated that this year the car production has been accelerated as the industry sees positive growth in production after two years of slump.

He also pointed to the growth in the cement production which has been 15 percent comparing to the early days of the Islamic Revolution.

Modarres Khiabani, who has been designated by President Hassan Rouhani as the new minister of industry, Mine and Trade, added that production in petrochemical sector has been doubled comparing to 2012 and the production in the textile and apparel sector has also been doubled during President Rouhani’s presidency.

He further said till ten years ago, Iran was importer of cooler and air-conditioner but today it produces 75 percent of its needs.

He also pointed to 49 percent growth in the aluminum production in the first four months, last year the aluminum production was enhanced to 750,000 tons which was twice the previous capacity.

Modarres Khiabani noted that the ministry is planning to inaugurate the first TV panel production in the country in the Government Week.

He added during the week, a refrigerator and freezer production unit with capacity of producing 300 sets will be inaugurated in Qom.

Next week Majlis is to hold a session for giving vote of confidence to the designated minister to take the job.

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The remarks were made by Hossein Salimi, the vice president of the Iranian Committee of the ECO Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI), in an exclusive interview with Iran Daily.

He said the ECO member countries have welcomed Iran’s proposal of manufacturing the new car in a recent meeting of the organization.

Salimi added that the meetings of different ECO committees are currently held virtually due to the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.

The novel coronavirus outbreak, which began in Wuhan, China, in December, has expanded to touch nearly every corner of the globe, infecting over 15.97 million and killing more than 643,000.

Commenting on the experience of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in the joint production of an automobile, Salimi suggested that ECO members can do the same by taking part in the manufacturing of a new car brand.

The ASEAN is a regional intergovernmental organization comprising ten countries in Southeast Asia, which promotes intergovernmental cooperation and facilitates economic, political, security, military, educational and sociocultural integration among its members and other Asian countries.

Elaborating on how the ECO members each can play a role in the initiative, he said, “For instance, a country can produce the parts and another one can assemble them. Participation by some members can even be in the form of purchasing the manufactured cars.”

According to Salimi, preliminary estimates regarding the required investments and facilities for the annual production of one million automobiles are expected to be made based on a request by the ECO and in coordination with the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“A report of the estimates will be handed over to the ECO.”

The car to be produced by the ECO members is required to be competitive with other brands in international markets, he said, adding, “We are calculating the amount of demand for such a new car model in each member state to be able to meet their needs following the production of the automobile.”

At present, he said, Iran, Turkey as well as Pakistan have the required capabilities and technology for manufacturing automobiles and, along with other members, can cooperate in this enterprise.

Describing as less-than-satisfactory ECO’s efforts to achieve its economic goals and implement its plans, Salimi called on the member states to prioritize collective and long-term interests over the national and short-term ones.

“It will help the organization work better toward its economic targets.”

Despite its long-standing historical background, he added, the ECO has, in practice, failed to accomplish a large number of simple tasks due to the differences among its members.

The ECO is an intergovernmental regional organization, encompassing countries from Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia, Middle East and South Asia with more than 460 million inhabitants, according to eco.int.

Covering an area of over eight million square kilometers, it connects Russia to the Persian Gulf and China to Europe. The overall objective of the organization is the sustainable economic development of its member states and the region as a whole.

Established as Regional Cooperation for Development (RCD) in 1964 by Iran, Pakistan and Turkey, the organization was rechristened as ECO in 1985.

In 1992 and in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union, Afghanistan and six former Soviet republics, namely, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan joined the organization, forming one of the biggest regional blocs in Asia and beyond with 10 members.

Expounding on the differences among the ECO members, Salimi said for instance, many years ago, it was proposed that the members eliminate visa requirements among their nationals, in a move similar to what has been done in the Schengen Area, enabling them to easily travel to member countries.

“Each time, however, one or two members disagreed with the proposal. For an ECO visa sticker plan to be carried out successfully, all members must arrive at a consensus.”

He added the Economic Cooperation Organization Trade Agreement (ECOTA) is another project that has been suspended due to a disagreement among the members.

“To achieve their goals, particularly, in the field of trade, the ECO members placed implementation of the ECOTA plan on their agenda having studied similar experiences by other international organizations. The agreement will be a significant step toward facilitating trade among the members and promotion of free trade in the region. The ECOTA was signed in July 2003 in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad.”

Salimi said the agreement is aimed at unifying tariffs on trade among the ECO members, regretting that the plan was suspended as a number of member states, which are exporters of certain products, have voiced disagreement with the reduction of tariffs.

“Of course, it is possible to abolish tariffs on some products and lower them on other goods.”

This, he explained, comes as the signatories to North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) – a deal signed by Canada, Mexico and the US, creating a trilateral trade bloc in North America – managed to arrive at a consensus about the treaty despite their differences.

He stressed that the ECO members that are all Muslim countries should basically be able to come to an agreement on different issues with greater ease.

NAFTA came into force in January 1994.  It facilitates entry by the nationals of the signatories into each other’s countries for trade exchanges, provision of services and investments.

Also commenting on the reasons for the differences among the ECO members, Salimi said, “I am one of the oldest people in the ECO having worked at the organization for over two decades. However, throughout all these years, the members have never arrived at an agreement over an issue.”

He said that some of the members have been following certain economic patterns since a long time ago and have their own economic attitudes and principles, which are different from other members.

“This comes as the ECO members have considerable capacities in different fields, such as in terms of population and natural resources, which can be used to increase the organization’s role in political and, particularly, economic international relations.”

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The post Car Manufacturing Growth at 31% appeared first on Iran News Daily.

Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, Gholam Hossein Esmaeili said the case of Vahid Behzadi and his wife, Najva Lasheidaee, includes a mixture of crimes, such as disruption to the country’s currency market and car market.

The two have been sentenced on charges of major disruption to the country’s monetary and currency system, currency smuggling through dummy purchase orders, disrupting the system of distribution of commodities by purchasing more than 6,700 cars in advance from Iranian carmaker Saipa, and money-laundering involving a sum of 32 trillion rials, Esmaeili added.

The Judiciary spokesman noted that 24,700 gold coins and 100 kilograms of gold have been confiscated from the convicted woman’s dwelling.

He also noted that former CEO of Saipa car factory, Mahdi Jamali, has been sentenced to 7 years in prison for involvement in disruption to distribution mechanisms, while the former deputy head of the carmaker’s marketing department has been sentenced to 15 years.

Moreover, two parliamentarians, Mohammad Azizi and Fereidoon Ahmadi, have been sentenced to 61 months in prison each, he noted.

Since August 2018, Iran’s Judiciary has been holding public trials of individuals involved in major economic corruption cases.

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei has permitted the Judiciary to take special measures in order to confront economic corruption and called for “swift and just” legal action against financial crimes.

Earlier, the Leader of the Islamic Revolution has described “outright and unequivocal” treatment of economic corruption as one of the Judiciary’s major duties, stressing that confronting economic corrupts must be decisive and effective.

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The number of manufactured cars in Aban indicates a 57-percent decrease from 135,402 cars manufactured in the same month of the preceding year.

During the first eight months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 21 – November 21), the country’s car production also decreased by 24.9 percent and dropped to 721,363 units from 960,003 units in the same time span of the past year.

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