Secretary of Iran’s Supreme Council of Free and Special Economic Zones Hojjatollah Abdolmaleki said on Friday that the prime minister of Iraq has proposed a region in the Arab country’s Wasit governorate for the joint free trade zone, which is located in the vicinity of Mehran border crossing in Iran’s western province of Ilam.

The feasibility studies for the launch of the joint free trade zone are underway, he added.

The first joint free trade zone between Iran and Iraq will become operational by the end of the current Iranian year (March 2024), Abdolmaleki added, noting that Iraq can export its products to the other parts of the world through Iran and have access to the Indian Ocean and international waters via Iran’s free and special economic zones.

Giant steps have been taken to bolster economic ties between Iran and Iraq, he concluded.

In its latest report, the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) released the economic statistics related to the Persian calendar month of Esfand (February-March 2023) which contains the latest data and economic statistics in the monetary and banking sectors, balance of payments and the capital market.

According to the report, the foreign debts of the country at the end of the previous Iranian calendar year reached $6.282 billion, showing a 27.6 percent decline compared to a year earlier.

The report also pointed to the settlement of $2.393 billion of the foreign debts of the country in this period.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a cabinet session on Wednesday, Iranian Vice-President for Science and Technology Ruhollah Dehghani Firouzabadi said a domestic working group on manufacturing homegrown commercial airplanes has held several meetings so far.

He also unveiled plans to form a joint international aviation consortium with countries that are aligned with Iran.

The vice president stated that Iran will hold a 20% share in the consortium in the industries that have a low volume but generate high economic value.

In late May, Iran’s domestically-produced transport plane named ‘Simorgh’ successfully completed its maiden flight, a year after its unveiling.

The Simorgh aircraft has been designed and manufactured by the Iran Aviation Industries Organization, a subsidiary of the Iranian Defense Ministry.

Iranian authorities say the development of this aircraft aims to enhance the country’s defensive capabilities.

While describing the $30 billion trade exchanges between Iran and China last year (ended March 20, 2023), Mohammad Rezvanifar said that Iran exported $3.5 billion worth of non-oil goods to China from March 21 to June 22, 2023.

In this period, Iran imported $4.3 billion worth of products from China, he added.

Speaking in an interview with Fars news agency, Rezvanifar stated that Iran exported 35.5 million tons of non-oil goods, valued at $12.5 billion, in the first quarter of the current Iranian calendar year.

Iran’s import of products in the first three months of the current Persian calendar year registered a 1 and 5.9 percent growth in weight and value respectively, the IRICA chief noted.

Iran imported 8.6 million tons of goods, valued at $14 billion, from March 21 to June 22, 2023, he continued.

Rezvanifar went on to say that Iran’s non-oil trade in the first quarter of the current Iranian calendar year registered a 24.42 percent growth in terms of weight and an 8.84 percent decline in terms of value compared to the same period last year.

In this period, five countries, namely China, Iraq, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and India were Iran’s top export target markets, he added.

Under the 25-Year Iran-China Partnership Cooperation Contract, China should be one of the important trade partners of the Islamic Republic of Iran. China is regarded as one of the important customers of Iranian oil and gas condensates and Iran plays an important role in the transit of goods from China and India to the European countries.

The Chamshir Dam went on stream on Monday in an inauguration ceremony attended by Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and senior members of his Cabinet.

Chamshir, located in the province of Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad, is the fifth largest dam in Iran with a 50-square-kilometer reservoir that can hold up to 2.3 billion cubic meters of water when it is full.

The dam is also the tallest roller-compacted concrete (RCC) dam in the West Asian region with a crest that is 680 meters high. It has a hydroelectric power plan that generates 176 megawatts of electricity, Press TV reported.

Statements by authorities suggested the government had spent 230 million euros from its assets in China to build the dam in addition to domestic budgets it had earmarked to the project.

Iranian Energy Minister Ali Akbar Mehrabian, for his part, said the dam would contribute to the expansion of agriculture and manufacturing in three provinces in southwest Iran.

He said Chamshir’s water will be used for irrigation of 70,000 hectares of agricultural lands in a region where farming used to suffer from damage caused by seasonal floods.

Iran’s Energy Ministry allowed filling the dam with water in January after it persuaded environmental advocacy groups that the structure will not affect the ecosystem in the region.

Iran has built many key infrastructure projects in recent years despite being under the economic pressure of American sanctions.

The projects have helped boost agriculture and manufacturing at a time the country sells lower amount of oil because of the sanctions.

CBI figures released on Monday showed that Iran’s gross domestic product (GDP) had reached 15,154 trillion rials ($409.5 billion) in the year to March 20, up from 14,571.4 trillion rials reported for the year to March 2022.

The CBI uses fixed prices reported in 2016 as a baseline for its GDP calculation. The US dollar was worth an average of 37,000 against the Iranian rial over that year, much lower than a current market price of 480,000 rials.

The CBI said in a short note that growth in Iran’s manufacturing activity was responsible for a major part, around 1.4%, of the rise in the country’s GDP in the year to late March, Press TV reported.

It added that wholesale, retail, motor vehicle maintenance, transportation, petroleum and communications sectors were other best performers of the Iranian economy over the past calendar year.

Figures in the report showed that Iranian oil sector GDP had increased by 10% to 1,272.2 trillion rials in the year to late March.

The non-oil sector of the Iranian economy also expanded by 4.7% over the period compared to the previous year, it said.

Iran recorded its highest quarterly GDP growth in the quarter to late March when the GDP reached 3,596.8 trillion rials, up 5.3% from the same quarter in 2022.

Economic growth figures reported by the CBI and the Statistical Center of Iran have been verified and corroborated by major international economic institutions, including the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Those institutions have admitted that Iranian government’s economic policies and the fiscal and monetary policies adopted by the CBI have enabled the country to resist the continued pressure of US sanctions.

Deputy Prime Minister of Russia Alexey Overchuk said this in an interview with TASS on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) on Sunday.

“Now, indeed, the EAEU has come very close to concluding such an agreement with Iran. This issue was touched upon, including at the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council and received the support of the heads of government. Therefore, we are making progress. The agreement can be signed,” the Russian Deputy Prime Minister said.

According to him, the EAEU is developing a number of FTA agreements with several more states, with which negotiations are also underway.

“(We are in talks with) Egypt, India, Indonesia, and the UAE. All these countries are friendly to us, they are growing markets, so respectively the economic center of the new multipolar world is moving in their direction,” Overchuk said.

He drew attention to the fact that even in a bilateral format, negotiations on free trade zones are “very difficult, and they take years.”

“Negotiators need to take into account a lot of different interests. In our case, the interests of all five EAEU member states, their businesses and consumers are involved here. All this should be taken into account by our negotiators. This is a complex process,” the deputy chairman of the Russian government concluded.

The member states of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) are Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

In this expert-level meeting, headed by the Philippines as the current coordinator of the region, the candidacy of the Islamic Republic of Iran was raised for this position and it was unanimously approved by the member countries.

In the tripartite system of the International Labor Organization, the group of governments are organized within the framework of four regional groups including Asia and Pacific, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Africa and play a key role in the decision-making assemblies.

The regional coordinators are responsible for forging relations of the organization with member states and also representatives of countries of respective regions in decision-making meetings including screening group meetings, the Board of Directors’ meetings, and specialized meetings of the International Labor Conference.

Iran and Venezuela have high potentials and capabilities to increase their trade volume, said Seyed Rouhollah Latifi, spokesman for Trade Promotion Commission of the Ministry of Industries, Mining and Trade.

He pointed to Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s visit to three Latin American countries of Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua, adding that more than 49,000 tons of non-oil products worth $118,101,832 were exported to Venezuela last year.

It shows a 416 percent increase compared to the same period a year earlier, he noted.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Latifi referred to Iran’s import of non-oil goods from Venezuela and noted that about eight tons of non-oil commodities, valued at $816,000, were imported into the country from Venezuela last year.

Iran also imported about 188 tons of non-oil goods, valued at $11.858 million, from Cuba in 2022, the spokesman continued.

Regarding Iran’s trade with Venezuela, he stated that Iran exported autos, spare parts, fishery products, sweets, pastries, tomato pastes, engine oils, chemicals, medicines, vaccines, fertilizers, detergents, handicrafts, ceramics, types of pipes and profiles, die-casting machinery, etc. to Venezuela from March 21, 2022 to March 20, 2023.

The visit by Raisi to the three Latin American countries could play a constructive role in the development of trade and economic ties as well as the export of technical and engineering services, he went on to say.

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Seyed Ehsan Khandouzi, who is also the Minister of Economic Affairs and Finance (MEAF), in response to a question on the release of Iran’s frozen assets in South Korea and other countries stated, “With the incessant efforts of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Central Bank of Iran (CBI), good progress and achievements have been made in this area, the results of which will be witnessed in coming weeks.”

Turning to the rising inflation rate in the country, Khandouzi noted that effective steps have been taken in order to reduce the growing inflation rate.

The economy minister pointed to some comments raised on the loan Iran has requested from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and said that the loan would not create any commitment for the country but it means an increase in the country’s capital at the IMF.

An independent technical team is incessantly working on receiving the loan from the international monetary body, Khandouzi concluded.