Non-oil Revenues Archives - Iran News Daily

New sanctions on metal sector by US

reporter 1222 — Sat, 11 Jan 2020 08:32:19 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – The Trump administration imposed new sanctions on Iran on Friday, including penalties on the Islamic Republic’s metal sector and some senior government officials.

Following Tehran’s retaliation for the assassination of Iranian Lieutenant General Qasem Soleimani, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced the new sanctions on metal sector at a press conference at the White House on Friday.

The sanctions were initially promised by Trump on Wednesday after Iran launched more than a dozen missiles on two airbases in Iraq housing US troops.

The new sanctions targeted the Iranian construction, manufacturing, textiles, mining, aluminum, copper, iron and steel industries, Mnuchin said.

Washington also imposed bans on eight senior Iranian officials, saying they were involved in the missile strike on the bases housing American troops.

“We are announcing additional sanctions on the Iranian regime as a result of the attack on US and allied troops,” Mnuchin said. “Today’s sanctions are part of our commitment to stop the Iranian regime’s global terrorist activities.”

“I think we have 100 percent confidence and we are consistent in our view that the economic sanctions are working,” he said. “That if we didn’t have these sanctions in place, literally Iran would have tens of billions of dollars. They would be using that for terrorist activities throughout the region and to enable them to do more bad things.”

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Reducing Reliance on Oil Revenues by Boosting Handicrafts Industry

reporter 1222 — Mon, 16 Dec 2019 15:36:50 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – Head of handicrafts, carpet and tourism committee of Iran Chamber of Cooperatives Mr. Abdollah Bahrami believes by a good and wise planning, carpets and handicrafts can replace oil sales revenues in the country and reduce reliance on oil revenues.

Bahrami in a joint press conference with the managing director of Talfigh-e Honar Cooperatives Mr. Seyed Morteza Mortazavi highlighted major programs of the cooperative sector in the country in handicrafts industry and ways to reduce reliance on oil revenues.

Bahrami said that Iran’s sales of hand-woven carpets in the past two decades usually stood at $1.5 and over 2m carpet weavers were active in the country while the annual capacity for producing hand-woven carpets was around 6m square meters and it could earn the country $3b through exports of carpet.

He went on to say that lack of attention by the government and abundant problems for carpet-weavers caused Iran to lose its world stance and its forex revenues began to fall. He added that although Iran is full of designs and priceless treasury in diversity in designs, and over 6,000 educated people are involved in the carpet industry, exports and production of carpets are declining due to inattention and negligence.

He also criticized Iran’s Central Bank’s regulations for hand-woven carpet exporters, adding that it takes one year and exporters have to sell their forex in the NIMA system.

He went on to criticize the government for stopping the support of carpet weavers by cutting their insurance. He added that the government is not ready to pay its share of social welfare insurance and carpet weavers themselves have to pay the total money and most of them cannot afford them and leave the job.

Bahrami went on to say that in the past, the carpet industry was exempted from paying value-added tax because most of the hand-woven carpet producers from the lowest deciles of the society but today both sale and export have to pay 9 percent VAT.

He added that currently over one million people are active in the carpet industry and they can earn the country over $3b.

He said the value of hand-woven carpet last year stood at $420m but the figure has been only $30m in the first four months of the current year.

Bahrami noted that over 113,000 cooperatives for producing hand-woven carpets exist in the country and the number of weavers who are under social welfare insurance is unknown.

He admitted that the carpet industry has faced both domestic and international sanctions, adding that exports are done in rial but the raw material for weaving is bought based on free-market price.

Bahrami said that Germany, the UAE, South Africa, China, and Japan are the main destinations for Iran’s hand-woven carpets.

He reiterated that to boost the carpet industry, it needs financial facilities, adding that levying VAT on the carpet industry has increased the production cast.

Meanwhile, the CEO of Talfigh-e Honar Cooperatives Mr. Mortezavi said that most of the handicrafts in the country are produced in the houses and over 6100 workshops are active in the country and over 5,000 people are busy in the handicrafts industry.

He added that according to the statistics, the country exports one million barrel of oil per day and $6m enter into the treasury while by exporting 10,000 pieces of handicrafts, the country can earn the same amount of money.

He reiterated that over 180,000 pieces of handicrafts are produced in the country per day and each piece worth 200 to 400 euros.

Mortazavi added that the statistics show that handicrafts industry can earn 18 times more than what oil earns the country like India whose revenues from handicrafts are over billion dollars.

He said that Iran is the biggest hub of the handicrafts industry in West Asia and it can earn money equal to oil revenues in three years. Thus the country’s reliance on oil revenues will decrease by the time handicrafts production goes up.

He went on to say that currently Iran’s handicrafts are exported to European countries and Canada and soon a permanent exhibition for sales of Iranian handicrafts will be set up in Afghanistan, while the cooperative has programs to have a vast presence in Germany and Poland.

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Next budget bill based on non-oil revenues; Rouhani says

reporter 1222 — Sun, 08 Dec 2019 07:03:33 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that the country’s next budget bill for the coming fiscal year has been designed to counter US sanctions and that it is not much reliant on oil revenues.

“Our budget for the next year, like the current year, will be based on resistance against sanctions; the budget’s message is that we will manage the country despite all sanctions,” he said on Sunday in the open session of the Parliament.

“Next year’s budget is not much reliant on oil. Anticipated revenues for oil and gas sales are close to the required budget for civil projects,” he said, adding that 700 trillion rials (some $5.3 billion) have been allocated to such projects.

Rouhani was at the Parliament to submit the next year’s budget bill.

“We were under the toughest sanctions last year; we promised that the administration, with the support of the resistant Iranian nation and other organizations, would make every effort to provide and implement the budget and this has been realized by now,” Rouhani said.

Nine months have passed since the year 1398 and all the daily budgets have been provided, he said, adding that 340 trillion rials (some $2.6 billion) have been allocated to civil projects. “Major projects have either been inaugurated or will be by the year-end.”

“All this has been realized while Americans and Zionists thought that sanctions would cripple the government, but they gave up on that and will keep being disappointed in the future,” Rouhani said.

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Above $5bn of non-oil export revenues earned via NIMA since Mar.

reporter 1222 — Wed, 10 Jul 2019 09:30:36 +0000

“Five billion dollars has been earned during this almost four months via NIMA and by exports-for-imports method,” he said expressing content about the volume of the gained income.

The official highlighted CBI’s applied policies for lubricating non-oil exports adding that export revenues must be utilized to back country’s trade with the world.

As previously announced, CBI has unveiled a decree containing a list of new incentives for the country’s exporters that re-inject their earned foreign currency to NIMA. Based on the announcement, those exporters who return more than 60 percent of their earned currency to the country’s economic cycle in accordance with previous decrees, in addition to the listed incentives, they will become CBI’s priority for allocation and supply of foreign exchange [in case they need it].

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