The plan to earn $83 billion from nonoil exports by the end of Fifth Five-Year Economic Development Plan (2010-15) is tied to establishing stability in the value of foreign exchange as well as regulations and rules, said a senior official of Trade Promotion Organization of Iran.

Kiumars Fathollah-Kermanshahi told IRNA on Saturday the aforesaid target is planned against $77 billion in imports and in line with the National Strategy for Imports and National Strategy for Promoting Exports.

He said nonoil exports had been targeted at $45 billion for the year to March 2012 the first...

A proposal to pay BD30 ($80) monthly allowance for each of the first four children under the age of 18 will be discussed by parliament at Tuesday's session.

Parliament's financial committee has already approved the proposal aiming to help Bahraini families provide their children with basic daily needs without resorting to loans, reports our sister paper Akhbar Al Khaleej.

Parliament's services committee also sanctioned a proposal enabling Bahrainis aged 40 and above to undergo full medical check-ups every five years.

The Health Ministry said it will implement the proposal through...

UAE Minister of Economy Sultan bin Saeed Al Mansouri recently headed the UAE delegation to the 45th meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council Committee for Trade Cooperation, held in Riyadh.

Ministers discussed the common law to combat commercial fraud in the GCC, and the secretariat’s note on self-financing of the Centre for Commercial Arbitration of the GCC countries.

The meeting saw the recommendation to approve the adoption of the costs of the comprehensive study on the flow of goods to GCC states, in the event of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, as recommended by undersecretaries...

A senior Iranian official says the country is set to improve its global ranking in the copper production industry to the world’s 7th in the current Iranian year (started March 20).

“This year, with the expansion of exploration activities, re-opening of mines and the outlook for discovering 21 million tons of pure copper reserves in the country, Iran's copper industry will improve by two notches to stand as the world’s number 7 in the field,” said Ali Akbar Mehrabian, a special assistant to the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,"...

The Iranian minister of economic affairs and finance says US and European Union sanctions will only harm the financial recovery of the West as any reduction in Iran’s oil exports will result in a hike in global gasoline prices.

"The sanctions have created a lot of disturbances for us, but we have overcome those challenges and difficulties, and are making up for what was lacking,” Shamseddin Hosseini said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal on Friday.

He added that the US and its allies are underestimating a decade of"...

Iran's Defense Minister says the imminent launch of the Fajr (Dawn) satellite into the orbit proves Iran's high scientific power and its determination to continue its development programs.

Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi said the satellite will be launched in late May, most probably on May 23.

“The Islamic Republic is making good progress despite all pressures and sanctions and if hegemonic powers think that they can put pressure on Iran via sanctions, they are in fact squandering their own opportunities,” he added.

The minister"...

Iran’s share of the annual trade turnover among the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) is around $10 billion, said the head of the Trade Promotion Organization of Iran.

Hamid Safdel told the IRNA News Agency that $6 billion is the share of Iran’s exports to the ECO member states. The 10-member organization’s share in the global trade is roughly around $684 billion annually, he noted. The secretary general of the ECO said in September 2011 that the organization plans to set up a common trade market among its member states. “Under the agreement reached...

Italy raised crude oil imports from Iran by about 6 per cent in March from February, while total crude import fell amid weak demand for refined oil products, said a report.

Italy, which relies on Iran to cover 10.4 percent of its crude oil import needs, raised oil purchases from the Islamic Republic to 425,200 tons in March from 401,600 tons in February, according to oil industry body Unione Petrolifera (UP). At 1.69 million tons in the first quarter of 2012, Italy's crude imports from Iran were above the 1.44 million tons imported in the January-March period of 2011, the UP data...

Minister of Industries, Mines and Trade Mehdi Ghazanfari said the country will become the largest producer of crude steel in the Middle East and north of the Persian Gulf in view of planned investment in the sector.

Stating that Iran's annual steel output stands at 14 million tons, Ghazanfari announced on Friday the plan to add about 20 million tons to the concentrate and pellet production capacity of the Iran's eastern province of Khorasan Razavi, which will emerge as one of the country's steel production hubs, Press TV reported.

Concentrates and pellets are raw materials used...