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9.1.3 Transport sector news
All airline travel agencies operating in Iran are required to sell air tickets according to the current free market Iranian rial (IRR) rate, Islamic Republic News Agency reported a representative of the Civil Aviation Organization (CAO) as saying on August 14.
Several Iranian airlines have been pushing the government to increase the IRR-to-the-dollar rate they can demand. It currently stands at around IRR95,000. The request from the airlines was prompted by overwhelming demand received from Iranians using their flights to travel to international destinations at unrealistically low prices. The reimposition of US sanctions on Tehran has seen the rial lose more than half its value on the black market in recent months. By the end of trading on August 14, the black market rate stood at 107,000 to the USD.
Director of public relations at the CAO, Reza Jafarzadeh, reportedly said in an interview that "no airline in Iran is allowed to sell tickets in a foreign currency, and foreign airlines in Iran have to sell their tickets to those requesting tickets in rial”. He added that the CAO will monitor the sale of domestic and foreign airline tickets and would deal with any pricing violations.
The leaders of Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan on August 12 signed a new convention aimed at settling the legal status of the hydrocarbon-rich Caspian Sea. The agreement, signed during a meeting at the Kazakh port city of Aktau, addresses a 20-year-long dispute. The speeches of the five leaders provided no details of the agreement but the convention likely addressed the longstanding debate as to whether the Caspian is a sea or a lake. If it is concluded that it is a sea, the five littoral neighbours would draw lines from their shores to a midway point—if it is labelled as a lake, the Caspian’s resources would be equally divided between the five countries. The sea option would see Iran losing out on much of the territory, receiving only 13% of the Caspian, while Kazakhstan would benefit the most due to over half of the Caspian’s wealth being concentrated in Kazakhstan’s segment.
Classifications aside, the delimitation of the seabed would require additional agreements between the parties, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said during the meeting in Aktau. This reflects especially when it comes to the possibility of constructing the Trans-Caspian gas pipeline (TCGP), which could arguably become the most significant project to emerge from a final resolution to the Caspian Sea issues.
9.1.4 TMT sector news
Iran’s Ministry of Industries, Mining and Trade has permitted the quick import of 20,000 tonnes of newsprint to address fears that a shortage might hinder the printing of newspapers, Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting reported on August 8. The imposition of unilateral US sanctions on the Iranian economy on August 7 is having unintended consequences across various industries. The Iranian news industry still very much relies on printed newspapers to push the lines of the various factions of the Islamic Republic’s ruling elite. The industry has made relatively little use of the internet, with only a few newspapers offering full paid services online. That makes it extra vulnerable to any lack of paper for printing. Following the approval of the Ministry of Industries, Mines and Trade, members of the newspaper industry along with officials from different ministries formed a task
39 IRAN Country Report September 2018 www.intellinews.com