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TNEGA GNIVECER

Iran Air Sells Shares toRenew FleetIran Air plans to trade shares on thepublic market in order to energize andrejuvenate its fleet, the head of theIranian flag carrier has said.The state-owned airliner, founded in1962, is to purchase as many as 100new aircraft to renovate its fleet offoreign-built jetliners, Iran Air’sChairman Farhad Parvaresh saidThursday, Presstv quoted Bloombergas saying.“Our company will be going into theTehran Stock Exchange,” Parvareshsaid during an interview with foreignmedia. “We are creating theconditions for this. Whether that willbe 100 percent, 70 percent, 60 percent,we are working on this.”The move comes amid politicalobstacles that the Iranian airline facesin buying new planes and spare partsfrom European suppliers, includingBoeing and Airbus SAS. TheEuropean Union recently bannedmany Iran Air jets from using itsairspace because of safety concerns.Parvaresh did not provide a timeframefor Iran Air to begin selling shares tothe public, but he said that HomaHotels, an Iran Air subsidiary, isalready listed on the Tehran bourse.Iran Air Tour, another unit, is expectedto go public by the end of the Iraniancalendar year on March 20, 2011.The public offering will assist Iran Airto finance its planned expansion, evenas the country comes under a newround of sanctions because of itspeaceful nuclear activities.Iran Air’s fleet includes 53 aircraft fromBoeing, Airbus and Dutchmanufacturer Fokker. The average ageof an aircraft is 21 years.

Tarabaran August 2010/No.94

Non-Oil Exports Exceed $9bIran has exported $9.145 billion of various non-oil products during the first fourmonths of the current Iranian year (started March 21) showing 21.32 percentgrowth over the same period last year, Iran’s Customs Administration announced.

The weight of the exports stands at20.620 million tons increasing 22.21percent compared to the last year,IRNA reported.Non-oil exports excluding gascondensates in the four months toJuly reached $7.771 billion posting36.63 percent increase against thesame period last year.During the same period, Iran hasimported $18.449 billion of variousproducts showing 17.31 percent

growth. The imports were also weighted 14.724 million tons showing 10.69 percentgrowth. China, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, India and Afghanistan have been5 major importers of Iranian non-oil products during the last 4 months, accordingto the report. The major exporters to Iran also include the United Arab Emirates,China, Germany, South Korea and Turkey.Iran also imported $13,338 million worth of goods in the first 3 months of thecurrent Iranian calendar year (started March 20, 2010) which is 13.61 percentmore than the previous year.Head of Iran’s Trade Promotion Organization, Babak Afqahi, said earlier thismonth that Iran exported $5.8 billion worth of non-oil products to over 108countries in Q2 of 2010.

Iran-Turkey-Pakistan Freight Train Set for ActionThe first freight train between Iran, Turkey and Pakistan will start operation onAugust 12.“The train known as The Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) containertrain will be running between Islamabad and Istanbul through Tehran on thefirst Thursday of every month,” an official of Pakistan’s ministry of railroadstold.The demonstration run of the freight train from Islamabad to Istanbul throughTehran began on August 14 last year. It will start its return test run from Istanbul on August 2 and reach Zahedan onAug 9. Afterwards, it will operate between the three cities. At a meeting in Tehran in March last year, the transport ministers of thethree countries had finalized modalities to run a container train between thethree cities.The trilateral ministerial meetingdiscussed the possibility to alsorun a passenger train on theI s l amabad-Tehran- I s t anbu lroute. “An ECO passenger trainis already operating betweenIstanbul and Tehran and itsservice will shortly be extendedto Ashkabad, Turkmenistan. The modalities to extend its operation to Pakistanare being considered,” the official added.At the inaugural ceremony of the ECO container train test run, Pakistani PrimeMinister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani said that future of Economic CooperationOrganization (ECO) rests on its ability to deliver concrete benefits to the 10member states and the common prosperity of the ECO states depends on enhancedregional trade, energy cooperation and strengthened links.

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Rail Transportation Roadmap ReadyManaging Director of Islamic Republic of Iran Railroads (IRIR) said the roadmapfor expanding the rail transportation sector has been completed and the projectfor expansion of this sector will start next year.“A comprehensive plan has been compiled for expanding the rail transportationsector. On the day I introduced the efforts for compiling the roadmap, I promisedto expand the rail transportation sector and in nine months we completed thisroadmap. The sectors that need ratifications of Majlis, participation of the privatesector and/or the decision of the Cabinet have been specified in this roadmap,”added Abdolali Saheb-Mohammadi in an interview with Iran Daily.He recalled that the roadmap includes maximum ceding of affairs to the privatesector, indigenizing the rail transportation industry, improving productivity aswell as quantitative expansion of cargo and passengers.“In this roadmap, the needed resources have also been stipulated and the sectorswhose credits should be procured through the government and/or the privatesector have been outlined. We currently have a complete policy package inwhich the necessary support has been designated for the private sector, potentialforeign investors, localproducers or the body in chargeof handling passengers andcargo if necessary,” he noted.He also recalled that in the pastfew months nine railroadcompanies have been ceded tothe private sector, which byitself marks a lofty step towardprivatization.“No longer will IRIR interfere inpurchasing rail transportation fleet or exploiting railroads and all related taskshave been assigned to the private sector.”He said the government has ceded Raja Passenger Trains Company to the SocialSecurity Organization and hence the passenger sector will become privatehundred percent.Saheb-Mohammadi emphasized that the roadmap focuses on renovating andupgrading the present conditions of the existing railroads and removing relatedbottlenecks and hurdles. “We intend to utilize the existing capabilities moreeffectively both qualitatively and quantitatively,” he added.He said the present capacity of nationwide railroads is 9,500 kilometers.“Many of our railroads are outdated and need to be renovated in order to makebetter use of the existing means and facilities. At the moment, we have underconstruction 3,500 kilometers of rail network within the framework of about 30projects,” he pointed out.He noted that in the course of the Fifth Development Plan (2010-2015) hiscompany is obligated to renovate and optimize some five percent of the totalrailroads of the country annually upon allocation of the needed budget.“The target behind renovating and optimizing the rail network is to improvesafety and increase speed of trains. Last year, some 25 percent of the rail networkfaced some 20 percent increase in speed which is the product of renovatingabout 500 kilometers of railroads,” he noted. He said about 18,000 wagons shouldbe added to the present level of 30,000 wagons in the rail network in order tomeet the increasing demand for transport of cargo.

Air Asia to Start TehranFlightsAir Asia airline will officially runflights to Tehran in the upcomingdays.Mehr News Agency reported thatwhile a few Western governmentshave been trying to restrict their airtravel to Iran due to UN sanctionsagainst the country, Air Asia which isone of the most accredited airlines ofEast Asia has come to a decision tostart some routes to Tehran includingtwo flights from Kuala Lumpur.Air Asia is a Malaysian low-costairline. It operates scheduled domesticand international flights and is Asia’slargest low fare, no-frills airline. AirAsia was a pioneer of low-cost flightsin Asia. It is also the first airline in theregion to implement fully ticketlesstravel and unassigned seats.However, since February 5, 2009, AirAsia has implemented allocated seatsacross all Air Asia flights, includingin their sister airlines, Indonesia AirAsia and Thai Air Asia. Its main baseis the Low-Cost Carrier Terminal(LCCT) at Kuala Lumpur InternationalAirport (KLIA).Its affiliate airlines Thai Air Asiaand Indonesia Air Asia have hubsat Suvarnabhumi Airport, Thailandand Soekarno-Hatta InternationalAirport, Indonesia, respectively.Air Asia’s registered office is inPetaling Jaya, Selangor while itshead office is on the grounds ofKuala Lumpur International Airportin Sepang, Selangor.

Tarabaran August 2010/No.94

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Iran Proposes Railroad to ChinaPresident Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has proposed the construction of a railroad

network connecting Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan,Kyrgyzstan, and China.Ahmadinejad made the remarks during the trilateralsummit with the three Persian speaking countries ofIran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan which was held inTehran on Thursday, Mehr News Agency said.The construction of such a railroad will promote securityin these countries, he opined.Ahmadinejad said the involved countries can ask theIslamic Development Bank to fund the project.The proposed railroad will link rail networks in China,

Kyrgyzstan, and Afghanistan to Iran’s railroad network, and the entire systemwill be linked to other countries through the port city of Chahbahar in southeastIran on the shores of the Sea of Oman.

Iran Air, Turkish Airline toForm ConsortiumThe chairman of Iran’s flag carrier,Iran Air, said that Iran and Turkey willform a joint aviation consortium in thenear future.Farhad Parvaresh stated that initialtalks have been held with TurkishAirline, and it is necessary to includeother neighboring countries in theconsortium as well, IRINN reported.Last month Turkish Airline officialsvisited Iran and held talks with IranAir chairman in order to expandrelations between the two countries’national airlines.Parvaresh also visited Turkey in Julyand followed up on negotiations withTurkish Airline officials.Iran Air, or Airline of the IslamicRepublic of Iran, is the flag carrierairline of Iran, operating services to60 destinations, 35 international and25 domestic. The cargo fleet operatesservices to 20 scheduled and 5 charterdestinations.Turkish Airlines is the national airlineof Turkey. It operates scheduledservices to 127 international and 34domestic cities (37 domestic airports),serving a total of 164 airports, inEurope, Asia, Africa, and theAmericas.Iran and Turkey have in recent yearsboosted their cooperation in differentfields of economy, security, trade,education, energy and culture.Turkish Minister of Agriculture andVillage Affairs Mehmet Mehdi Ekerannounced in May that the volumeof trade exchanges between Iran andhis country has increased to $5.5billion.Both Iranian and Turkish officials arestriving hard to boost the two states’annual trade volume to $20 billion.

Transportation Sector to ExpandThe government intends to invest 28 trillion rials in transportation and transitsector to secure revenues equivalent to petro dollars for the country.First Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi said the situation is ripe for attractingforeign investments in this sector.“A few days ago, the transportation working group approved investing 28 trillionrials in the transportation sector. This way all transit routes will have two or morelanes,” added Rahimi, who was addressing the ceremony for presenting a reportby the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) on thetrend of foreign direct investments in various countries.He recalled that at present the capacity for transit of goods in the country is 144million tons per annum and the figure has the potential to increase to 200 milliontons.Rahimi attached importance on equipping the Customs Administration with X-Ray system.“The government has approved 1,000 million rials for equipping different customsdepartments nationwidewith this system.”He emphasized that planshave been stipulated so thatregional trade exchangescould be carried out withoutpassports and irrespectiveof monetary and hardcurrency considerations.“At the moment, we are on the verge of concluding a contract worth more than 25billion dollars in the railroad, dam and power plant sectors. We have signed anagreement with Syria under which Iran will be connected to Syria via Iraq and thento other countries. In other projects, Pakistan and Afghanistan will be connectedto Turkey and Europe via railroad,” he noted.Rahimi cited reviving the historic Silk Road as another important decision of thegovernment.“In this plan, China, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Azerbaijan and Turkey willbe connected to Europe via railroad.

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TARABARANMonthly Magazine of Transportation Economy

No.94 / August 2010 / Vol.12

License Holder: IRSOTR Co.Manager: M.Ashrafi

Editor in Chief: Pariva Orujniawww.tarabaranmag.com

E-mail:tarabaranmag@yahoo.comTel:88900489

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IKIA’s Customs RevenuesDoubleRevenues of the Imam KhomeiniInternational Airport’s (IKIA) customshave increased 115 percent to reach900 billion rials in the first four monthsinto July, general director of theinternational airport, Reza Qadimi, said.At present the customs office is oneof the most active offices in thecountry and even medicine cargoscould get through it, IRIB reported.Qadimi went on to say that about 6,000tons of goods worth $1.7 billion havebeen imported into the country duringthe said period, showing 17 percentand 110 percent increase in volume andvalue in comparison with the sameperiod last year.During the same period, the customs’foreign transit has witnessed a 256percent growth in value to reach $60million and a 237 percent increase involume showing 500,000 kilograms, hestated.He also said that the number of flightsat the airport has tripled.“When the airport was inauguratedtwo years ago, it handled an averageof 50 to 55 flights daily but this yearwe have an average daily flight of upto 180 which shows a 300 percent rise,”Qadimi added.“During the spring season this year,we have boarded more than 1,219,000passengers at IKIA which shows 19percent increase compared to thesame period last year which was1,024, 000,” he noted.

Exchanges with Iraq Hit $4bMinister of Economy and Finance Shamseddin Hosseini said the volume ofeconomic exchanges between Iran and Iraq has reached around $4 billion.Addressing the conference on business prospects and investment opportunitiesin Iran and Iraq, he added, “This is while in the past decade this figure was lessthan $50 million. This growth is praiseworthy, but both countries possess manymore potentials for bolstering two-way economic bonds.”He referred to the increase in non-oil exports and noted, “In the first four monthsof 2010-2011, non-oil exports hit $9.150 billion, which marks a 21 percent increasecompared to the corresponding period of 2009-2010. In the same time span,imports reached $18.5 billion, growing by 20 percent compared to the respective

period of last year.”He emphasized that Iran isprepared to sign economicagreements with Iraq and thereexist no barriers in this respect.The official announced theestablishment of Iranian banksin different Iraqi cities,including Baghdad and Basra.“Joint banks should also be

established in Iranian major cities to support economic activities of the twocountries,” he said.Hosseini referred to the effective role of insurance and banking in investments.“In order to improve two-way economic cooperation, we need the support ofbanks and insurance firms.”He recalled that Iran is ready to make available its achievements in varioussectors in the post-Islamic Revolution era to Iraq adding, “The paradigm forcooperation between Iran and Iraq is not a conventional rivalry and in thisrivalry we collaborate on the basis of friendship and seek increase in the sharesof either side.”“However, we do not want the share of other countries, including Syria, todecline and we are after developing a model for interaction and cooperation withIraq, Turkey and Syria,” he pointed out.