Page 42 - IRANRptSep19

Persian calendar year (ended March 20).
The minimum price per square metre of residential floorspace in Tehran stood at IRR28,000 ($0.20) in the capital’s poor southern districts, with the maximum price being IRR1.71mn ($12). The prices do not take into account the required deposit.
9.1.8 Retail sector news
Tehran’s Shahrvand Supermarket, one of the largest grocery chains in the sprawling capital city, is set to open its first branch in nearby Karaj, IRNA reported on August 28.
Shahrvand is known as one of the first western-style large supermarkets to have opened in Iran. It is wholly owned by the Tehran Municipality. By using the vast land resources of the city council, the supermarket chain has built up a significant advantage over commercial competitors in the past two decades. Morteza Alviri, head of the Supreme Council for the Provinces, said the move to expand the brand was within the remit of the company. There have been some calls for it to expand in Tehran further before moving on to other cities. The store in Karaj—which serves as the capital of Alborz Province, but is effectively a suburb of Tehran—is set to be followed by outlets in Shiraz, Tabriz, Mashhad and Isfahan.
There are 48 Shahrvand supermarkets of different sizes in Greater Tehran, home to 15mn people.
The biggest supermarket chain in Iran is presently Ofogh Koorosh, which works with the “discounter” methodology and is aggressively opening stores across the country. It has over 500 stores in the country.
9.1.9 Healthcare sector news
A Swiss payment channel that will help Iran to import medicines is ready to operate but is awaiting capital to launch, Otagh Online (“Chamber” Online) has reported the president of the Iran-Switzerland Joint Chamber of Commerce as saying.
Switzerland has for several years operated a distinct business channel for Iran-bound medical consignments, accounting for around 60% of Swiss medical exports sent to the Islamic Republic. However, with the reimposition of sanctions by the US last year, Switzerland found itself having to apply for a special sanctions-waiver to cover the trade mechanism from the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
“The channel is ready, its characteristics have been announced, but it’s waiting for the deposit of necessary funds from Iran,” Sharif Nezam-Mafi, president of the Iran-Switzerland Joint Chamber of Commerce, told the news outlet.
“There is no Iranian money in the channel yet”, he said.
“There is no money from Iran in Europe, much of the Iranian funds are still in India, Iraq, China and South Korea,” Nezam-Mafi added, referring to some of the countries the US is temporarily allowing to continue purchasing Iranian crude oil with no threat of sanctions.
Those and other countries are facing difficulties in sending export payments to Tehran due to the heavy restrictions on any financial transactions with the Iranians also introduced by the US.
The chamber of commerce official added that for the medical channel to operate, European countries must state their agreement that Iran can
42 IRAN Country Report September 2019 www.intellinews.com