President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad greets his Sri Lankan counterpart Mahindra Rajapakse in Tehran in November 2007 (file photo).

Sri Lanka’s government is abandoning support from traditional but rights-sensitive partners like the United States and Europe and turning to countries like China and Iran to finance its infrastructure projects.
According to Inter Press News, relations between the country’s traditional partners and the government have turned frosty in recent months.
Recently World Bank officials were told by a senior functionary of the treasury: “We don’t need your money with all those strings.“
Foreign affairs analysts and economists say President Mahinda Rajapakse nationalist government is relying on ’outside’ support because foreign aid in the form of grants and concessional loans comes with strings attached--which the government does not want to accept.
Last year, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) pulled out of Sri Lanka and has no programs in this country while the Bank recently completed a series of consultations with civil society groups, including farmers and journalists, seeking input for a new three-year country strategy. The real reason however, according to a civil society activist, was to ’use us to put pressure on the government because the authorities don’t listen to the World Bank any more’.

Analysts like Nanda Godage, a retired diplomat and commentator says there appears to be a ’clumsy’ policy in relation to foreign affairs. “Normally the Foreign Ministry should have a (well-researched) paper assessing relationships and the economic and political fallout (of sidelining countries like the US, the EU). This is missing. We need to diplomatically tackle institutions like the Bank and the IMF instead of being blunt with them.“
Godage said that Sri Lanka is better off not antagonizing the Bank and the IMF which are controlled by them (the US and the EU), he said.
Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama and his foreign secretary, Palitha Kohona are known to be at loggerheads over various issues, while Rajapakse has also independently taken decisions on foreign policy.
Another foreign policy development will come to the fore when President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visits Sri Lanka on April 28. When Rajapakse visited Iran last year, Washington voiced concerns.

’The Sunday Leader’ newspaper said this week that Israel is unlikely to respond to a Sri Lankan request for arms sales because of this country’s increasing ties with Iran. The paper said these concerns were communicated to Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake during a recent visit there.
Financial support from the US, the EU and the multilaterals has dwindled since Rajapakse won the presidential poll two years ago and ended a shaky ceasefire with Tamil rebels and ordered the troops to wipe out the rebels from their northern and eastern lairs.
Analysts say with western aid tied to the so-called governance, transparency and spending discipline, conditions the government has rejected, Rajapakse has been compelled to woo ’friendly’ countries to help the many infrastructure projects like super highways, railways, ports and airports. China and Iran have come to the country’s aid with loans, albeit at commercial rates of interest.
China is funding a coal power plant and a harbor with more than $700 million, while negotiations are underway for another $450-million loan for two highways.
Iran, on the other hand, is granting $450 million for a hydropower project and investing one billion dollars in an oil refinery. It recently provided a seven-month credit facility so that Sri Lanka’s entire crude oil requirement could be sourced from there.
All this is in addition to other support these two countries have been providing to Sri Lanka. Rajapakse has visited China twice in the past two years, the latest being two weeks ago. He is yet to pay official visits to the US or to any of its European allies.

Daily production capacity of National Iranian Central Oil Company’s nine oilfields will reach 450,000 barrels by March 2011, announced the company’s managing director.
Alireza Zeighami told PIN that the company is developing 23 oil fields in the central region of Iran, of which nine are operational with production at 161,000 barrels per day (bpd).
He added that the company is also working on 37 gas fields, six of which are in the process of development and 8 are to be handed over to contractors. NICOC gas fields produced 303 million cubic meters a day during winter and with the drop in consumption in recent days, the rate has decreased to 272mm cm/d, he stated.
Referring to NICOC’s development plans, the official said that the company’s gas production will rise to 400mm cm/d by March 2011 and 460mm cm/d by March 2016. NICOC is producing 87,000 bpd of gas condensates at present, he said adding that the rate would rise to 105,000 bpd by March 2011 and 120,000 bpd by March 2016.
The number of NICOC’s producing fields will increase to 67 by March 2011, he said noting that Khesht, Sarvestan, Sa’adat-Abad, Azar and Changooleh fields are under development and would come on stream by next March.

A plan to counter the effects of drought has been drawn up and submitted to the Interior Ministry to reduce possible losses as a result of this natural calamity.
Under the plan, fixed water tanks to store potable water for use by tribal groups and water for livestock should be installed while mobile water tanks should be considered in provincial tribal-related offices, said head of Tribal Affairs Organization, Jahanshah Seddiq.
He further told ISNA that due to low precipitation in the past three months, impacts of drought have been witnessed in many regions. He pointed out that the summer and winter settlements of these nomadic groups lack sufficient fodder.
Seddiq called for supplying fodder as the other urgent measure envisaged in the plan. Due to drought, livestock should be kept away from pastures until they are ready for grazing, he added.
The State Livestock Affairs Company, affiliated to Agricultural Jihad Ministry, has expressed its readiness to supply fodder for livestock owned by the tribal people during this period, he concluded.

Iran has not set a deadline for Royal Dutch/Shell to sign an agreement for developing the country’s giant South Pars gas field.
“We have not set a deadline for Shell to announce its Foreign Investment Decision (FID) pertaining to phases 13 and 14 of the South Pars gas field and works continue based on the timetable,“ Oil Minister Gholamhossein Nozari told Fars news agency Monday in Rome.
Iran is interested that the European energy major to undertake projects in phases 13 and 14 of the gas field based on the schedule, he stressed.
“There is a lot of work to respond to the challenging contracting market and to make sure that we have structured the design in the right way,“ Malcolm Brinded, Shell’s head of exploration and production, said over the weekend.
Indeed, France’s energy giant Total is seeking a long-term presence in Iran in view of the country’s important role in the world energy markets.

Iran is interested that the European energy major to undertake projects in phases 13 and 14 of the gas field based on the schedule.

“There is no law prohibiting investment in Iran now. We have adopted plans for a long-term stay in the country and see no reason for not being able to tackle problems,“ Andre Goffart, Middle East vice-president for Total, told IRNA.
“Total is responsible for supplying energy to world consumers and decisions taken by politicians are their business,“ he added.
On whether the energy giant would be able to meet the June deadline set by Tehran to announce its Foreign Investment Decision (FID) for developing phase 11 of the South Pars gas-field, Goffart explained, “Liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects are major and complicated undertakings and need many agreements. Numerous aspects of such projects have to be assessed prior to their implementation.
“I don’t think we would be able to meet the deadline and we continue talks with Iran’s oil minister and the National Iranian Oil Company to find a solution to the issue of managing the timetable.“


Shell, Europe’s largest oil and gas company has delayed making a final decision on grounds of soaring costs but also in the knowledge that a decisive move would put it in political conflict with Washington at a time of tension over Tehran’s uranium enrichment program.
Officials in Iran say negotiations with a number of Asian companies have already begun and that they are likely to replace Shell and Total if the two continued to prevaricate. There has already been speculation that Gazprom of Russia is keen to muscle in on the deal, while Sinopec of China has signed a $2 billion contract to develop Yadavaran oilfield.
Following US pressures on companies to stop business with Tehran, many western companies decided to do a balancing act. They have tried to maintain their presence in the country but refrain from getting into big deals that could endanger their interests in the US.
But after they witnessed that their absence in big deals has provided Chinese and India companies with excellent opportunities to signing up to an increasing number of energy projects and earn billions of dollars, many western firms are now losing reluctance to invest or expand work in Iran.
In an interview published on Thursday, Total’s Chief Executive Christophe de Margerie told ’Liberation’, “Iran is one of the largest oil-producing countries in the world. And in terms of gas, we are far from having made all the discoveries possible. We cannot afford to be absent.“
De Margerie explained that despite the global political situations, oil and gas are not ’stop and go’ industries with investments covering 20 to 30 year periods. He cited Libya as an example: “It was difficult at times. If we had left, there would never be an income.“
He warned, “There is a general decline in oilfields. If we don’t move we’re heading for a real problem. And the decision makers, who have environmental problems in mind, seem to forget the question of access to energy.“

Chabahar Free Trade Zone (CFTZ), located on two international corridors, plays a very important role in the transit of goods, observed secretary of High Council of Free Trade and Industrial Zones, Mahmoud Salahi.
He told ISNA that transit and transportation are among the main advantages of the country and based on this, the locations of free zones have been selected.
He noted that the CFTZ is situated not only at the crossroad of North-South and East-West corridors but also near free water of the Indian Ocean, adding ships plying the route reach Chabahar 16 hours sooner than the time required for arriving in Bandar Abbas. They can thus save $3 to $4 in transportation costs per ton of goods, he noted.
The official stated that Chabahar port is suitable for shipping goods from the Commonwealth Independent States to the Persian Gulf.
Afghanistan and Turkmenistan, he said, can use Chabahar Free Zone to transit their goods.

Iran would accept a ’logical increase’ in the price of natural gas imported from neighboring Turkmenistan, a senior oil ministry official said.
Turkmenistan halted its gas deliveries of up to 23 million cubic meters a day to Iran in late December, citing technical issues. Iran says the real aim was to raise the price.
“If Turkmenistan wants a logical increase in the price of gas it is okay with Iran because this country is selling gas to Russia at a new rate,“ Deputy Oil Minister Ali Kordan told IRNA.
Turkmenistan sells most of its gas to Russia’s gas export monopoly Gazprom which last month said it had agreed to buy gas from the former Soviet states of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan at prices close to what it charges European customers, minus transport and other costs.
In early April, another Iranian energy official said negotiations between Iran and Turkmenistan were continuing and that he believed that gas imports from Turkmenistan would resume soon.

Labor Ministry is in charge of preparing grounds for the activities of entrepreneurs in the state-owned and private sectors, said Labor Minister Mohammad Jahromi.
Speaking at the Third Festival of Exemplary Entrepreneurs, he recalled the steps taken by the government and parliament to support entrepreneurs and improve scientific centers and added, “We still have a long way to go in this respect.“
According to ISNA, he noted, “We should promote innovation to be able to implement the objectives of Vision 2025.“
Jahromi said that the issue of entrepreneurship has been raised in management and academic gatherings in recent decades, adding, “Fortunately not only are we not lagging behind the world in advanced management as well as in economic and social sciences but also are among the most prominent in the field.“
The Third National Festival of Exemplary Entrepreneurs began on Tuesday with a message from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad concurrent with National Entrepreneurship Day.

Iran will drill a well in the United Arab Emirate’s Saleh gas field to determine whether the offshore block extends into Iran’s territorial waters.
According to the Middle East Economic Survey (MEES), the Iranian Offshore Oil Company (IOOC) will conduct the drilling operation since seismic data belonging to seven years ago shows an extension of the gas field into Iranian waters.
Under a tender opened in February, IOOC, a subsidiary of the National Oil Company (NIOC), invited Iranian and international companies for exploration and development work. The winner of the tender should appraise existing seismic data, conduct further geophysical surveys and carry out the drilling of exploration and delineation wells, and reservoir engineering.
A master development plan should be drawn up, production wells should be drilled and offshore and onshore production and gas processing facilities should be constructed after preliminary studies proved that the Saleh gas field is extended into Iranian territory.