Gas flow to northern provinces will be resumed this week.

Domestic gas output has reached 460 million cubic meters per day for the first time thanks to the round-the-clock efforts of the oil industry staff, announced oil minister on Saturday.
Speaking at the Second Conference on Challenges and Opportunities of Iranian Companies in Oil and Gas Contracts in Tehran, Gholamhossein Nozari explained that gas being transferred from northwestern pipelines has increased by 10 million cubic meters per day, PIN reported.
He hoped that such huge volume of gas could help meet gas demand of the Caspian region, West and East Azarbaijan and Kurdestan provinces.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Friday promised gas problems facing north of the country will be solved. “Gas flow to the northern provinces will be restored this Monday or Tuesday--two weeks after supplies to the areas have been halted,“ the chief executive vowed.
Disruptions in gas supplies made residents of Mazandaran, Gilan and other northern provinces to seek alternative fuels for heating and cooking in the past two weeks.
Meanwhile, Deputy Oil Minister Akbar Torkan said natural gas consumed in the country exceeds 450 million cubic meters per day which is equal to the consumption in the European Union.
Criticizing the illogical energy consumption pattern, the official said the people were prodigal and described their consumption behavior as ’lavish and unfair’, Fars news agency reported.
Given that many industrial units have slashed consumption due to the recent drop in pressure, their quota of 110 million cubic meters were channeled for home use and the industries were supplied liquid gas instead.
“Prodigality is strongly proscribed in Islam and such depletion of energy is truly a waste in national resources.“
Blaming the current pricing policies for the present consumption pattern, the official underlined that subsidy must be granted only to the families who adopt more logical consumption patterns.
The value of energy consumed in the country is estimated to exceed $100 billion and this figure explicitly indicates the excessive consumption of fossil fuels in this resource-rich country, Torkan concluded.
Natural gas is sold for 100 rials (about one cent) per one cubic meter--30 times lower than the global price and unconfirmed reports suggest that it is set to increase up to 3000 rials (slightly above 30 cents) to reach a more reasonable price for over-consuming units.
Iran, which has the world’s second largest gas reserves, has been hit by a severe cold snap and heavy snowfalls.
The unprecedented freezing temperature led to drastic rise in consumption and a halt in Turkmenistan exports caused supply disruption in the country.

Northern horticulturists have not picked 80 percent of their oranges yet.

Unprecedented cold weather in recent weeks has damaged citrus crops in the provinces of Mazandaran and Gilan, managing director of Fruit and Vegetable Union said on Saturday.
In an interview with Iran Daily, Hossein Mohajerani noted that this will affect supplies in the new Iranian year which starts on March 20 and also will lead to a price hike for citrus nationwide.
“Citrus fruits are usually picked by the end of January,“ he said, adding that the cold weather has damaged most of the citrus crops.
Mohajerani added that if the cold weather continues, oranges will become bitter and inedible. “Some 70 percent of the Thompson orange crops have been picked,“ he said, stating that over 80 percent of other varieties of oranges have not yet been picked.
Noting that the negative impact of the cold weather on prices of citrus fruits will not become obvious for the next two weeks, he underlined that the current prices of the citrus from the south which are available in the market will not increase for some weeks.
“We should consume oranges which were stored for the new Iranian year. If the supply decreases, prices will also go up,“ he said.
Mohajerani disclosed that the base price of oranges from the south and north are currently 8,000 rials and 6,000 rials respectively.
“Prices of all kind of oranges will increase in the coming month,“ he said.
Referring to the situation of different kinds of vegetables in the market, he added that vegetables from farms in Dezful, Khuzestan province, which is the main distributor of vegetable in Tehran province, have decreased due to unprecedented cold weather in recent weeks.
Mohajerani concluded that fresh vegetables are in short supply in Tehran and the vegetable from greenhouses can help the market in this regard.

Some banking restrictions have not harmed IranÕs trade with China.

Chairman of Iran-China Chamber of Commerce said restrictions earlier imposed by four Chinese banks against Iran have been lifted.
Several delegations sent by the chamber to Beijing managed to convince the Chinese officials to lift restrictions imposed by four out of 10 banks, Asadollah Asgaroladi told Moj news agency Saturday.
China has become an increasingly important trading partner of Iran with bilateral trade at about $15 billion in 2006. “Two other teams will head to China within the next two days to negotiate lifting restrictions by the remaining six banks.“
Asgaroladi noted that the stoppage of banking businesses has not harmed bilateral trade yet and transactions are conducted via banks based in neighboring countries and cash payments. He is hopeful the problem will be solved soon.
Asgaroladi had earlier warned that the $20 billion bilateral trade target for 2007 could not be achieved if difficulties with letters of credit persisted.
In December, Iranians importing goods from China started complaining about restrictions on trade in the Asian country since they faced difficulties in opening letters of credit with Chinese banks.
Asgaroladi was quoted by ISNA as saying in early December that Chinese banks ’did not open letters of credit for Iranian traders during the past week’.
“Chinese banks did not give any reason for the move and if this trend continues it will harm the two countries’ economic cooperation and trade exchange,“ he said.
He did not name any of the Chinese banks.
A Chinese source who follows Iranian-Chinese commercial ties said there had been no official Chinese announcement on financial limitations on Chinese banks doing business with Iran.
“Maybe this [action by the banks] is based on some internal risk management because every bank has their own risk management,“ he told Reuters. He said sanctions could affect such an assessment.

Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz has predicted a better economic growth for Iran given the rising global oil prices, country’s young workforce and significant foreign exchange reserves.
The noted member of the Colombia University recalled that the national economy posted a significant growth in recent years, a fax sent to Iran Daily by Iran Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Mine reported.
The winner of 2001 Nobel economy prize who participated in a recent international conference on globalization, privatization and justice via video conference stated that gross domestic product (GDP) is not a proper benchmark for evaluating a country’s economic success since ’it does not show continuous growth’. “For example GDP does not include depletion of natural resources so it cannot be considered a good-performance yardstick.“
Stiglitz, a former senior vice president and chief economist of the World Bank, urged Iran to use Green Gross Domestic Product (Green GDP) as an index of its economic growth since the economy of the resource-rich country is dependent on natural resources such as oil.
Green GDP is an index of economic growth with the environmental consequences of that growth factored in. Although statisticians may caution about ’Green GDP’ and its methodological problems such as monetizing the loss of biodiversity or the impacts of climate change caused by carbon dioxide emissions, one must also acknowledge how poorly represented true growth or sustainable development is with the anachronic GDP.
Stressing that Iran needs to make new investment in various sectors, he explained that oil- and gas-rich countries usually neglect ’investment in other fields’.
Terming oil as ’black curse’, Stiglitz regretted that economies which are oil dependent usually fail to exploit other resources and are plagued with mismanagement.
“Countries whose economies are suffering from Dutch disease have also poorly managed their natural resources and workforce.“
Dutch disease is an economic concept that tries to explain the seeming relationship between the exploitation of natural resources and a decline in the manufacturing sector. The theory is that an increase in revenues from natural resources will deindustrialize a nation’s economy by raising the exchange rate, which makes the manufacturing sector less competitive.
“Resource-rich countries can make their poor people richer. But in practice their wealthy individuals get richer.“
Through proper planning and adopt appropriate policies, governments can narrow wealth gap, the economist concluded.

About 1.2 million new jobs will be created by the end of year to March 2008, stated Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Mohammad Jahromi.
He added that 18 plans have been drawn up to achieve the target including the establishment of small enterprises with quick investment return, which created 700,000 jobs during March 21-December 212, as well as support for workforce.
He noted that jobs generated in the housing, infrastructural and transportation sectors during the nine month period should also be taken into consideration.
Early retirement plan, approved by the cabinet, will also help the government create jobs, reported ISNA.
Implementation of the 18 schemes is prerequisite for creating 1.2 million jobs in a year, he added.
The minister referred to cutting lending rates for banks and removing obstacles to production and investment as the other measures taken to achieve the set objective.
“The 18 schemes which include training programs, formulating regulations, monetary and financial policies and import and export strategies would cut unemployment rate,“ Jahromi said.
He stated that the number of jobs generated during March 21-September 21, 2007 rose significantly compared to the figures for the same period in the past two years.
He hoped that the process would continue in the future.
Jahromi said earlier that unemployment rate will reach five percent in 2011, if the number of job seekers remains at the present level.
He stated that unemployment rate stood at 11.3 percent in 2006, showing a one percent decline compared to figure for the year earlier.
“Over 1.2 to 1.3 million job seekers enter the job market annually,“ he said, adding the figure depends on the number of graduating university students and eagerness among women to enter the job market.
The minister predicted that unemployment rate will decline once more foreign investment is absorbed.

Sturgeons face a high risk of extinction due to environmental pollution, smuggling and destruction of environmental habitats and rivers because of unchecked soil erosion and removal, said head of Fisheries Organization.
Shabanali Nezami told ISNA that the number of poached sturgeons equals the amount caught in authorized fishing.
He elaborated that due to poor facilities and shortage of staff, fishing in the Caspian Sea cannot be controlled properly.
Out of 1,800 personnel needed for controlling fishing in the sea, only 700 are involved in the job, he claimed.
There should be sufficient personnel to enable round-the clock control, but, sufficient patrols are not recruited due to financial constraints, he added.
Nezami pointed out that Iran’s fishing quota for sturgeon in the Caspian Sea is about 50 percent of the total. He attributed this to the role of the country in preventing the extinction of the species and helping its reproduction.
The Caspian aquatic reserves are shared by Iran, Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, he underlined.
Therefore Iran’s efforts in conserving stocks could not be effective on its own, he added.
He said that sturgeon poaching in Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan is 12, seven, four and four times of legal catch respectively.
Highlighting that sturgeon breeding has been underway for the past three years, he said that about 20 aquaculture centers--each with a production capacity of over 2,000 tons of sturgeon meat and 100 tons of caviar--have been issued permits. Of the mentioned figure, several sturgeon breeding complexes are active in the northern provinces, he explained, adding that they have over 30,000 sturgeon fish with each fish weighing 20 kilograms.