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regional internet providers to not cooperate with Iran. That resulted in a loss of internet connectivity and a general reduction of internet connection speeds in 2014.
9.1.6 Agriculture sector news
Iran has imported 2,000 sheep livestock via airfreight from Romania, Iran Student News Agency has reported.
Iranian officials are increasingly looking for meat supplies from abroad with Iran’s production dipping due to the price of animal feed. It has become expensive to the average Iranian farmer amid the country’s US sanctions-hit economy.
The Romania cargo was reportedly part of a shipment of 50,000 livestock due to enter Iran through Imam Khomeini Airport City (IKAC).
The Iranian company bringing in the livestock was not named. It was reported as set to bring in around 2,000 live sheep a day. Before being exported to Iran from Romania, sheep must stay in quarantine for 21 days.
Iran, Russia and Kazakhstan are making progress in organising finance for a long-planned wheat deal that could double or triple supplies to Iran, the secretary general of Iran’s Federation of Food Industry Associations Kaveh Zargaran has told Reuters.
Progress with the financing follows the signing of a wheat trading cooperation memorandum by the three nations on February 12 as part of a larger discussion on setting up a free trade zone between Iran and the Russia-led EEU countries. The talks on wheat trade started a year ago, but stalled due to a lack of funding. The deal would involve Russia and Kazakhstan exporting wheat to Iranian millers, who would, in turn, supply flour to Iraq.
“In the new agreement of the three sides, it is mentioned that the buyer can use a credit line opened by a bank, so funding [that was a main concern last year] will be settled,” Kaveh Zargaran said without specifying any banks. “In this case, we will notice wheat transit and swaps will be increasing from Russia and Kazakhstan.”
According to Zargan, this would “double or triple” Iran’s wheat imports.
Iran also needs 7.5mn tonnes of feed maize and 3mn tonnes of barley a year - it expects to import 3mn tonnes of maize and 1.5 tonnes of barley from Russia in the current Iranian year.
9.1.7 Property sector news
The number of Tehran residential apartment transactions during the first seven months of the last Persian year (period ended October 22) amounted to 84,300, marking a fall of 14.9% y/y, latest official figures show. The number in the seventh month of the year was 9,400 residential units, down 32.3% y/y, the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) added. The average sale price per square metre amounted to IRR86.1mn ($614mn) in the month, up 83.5% y/y.
Many of those Iranians who can afford to do so have turned to property assets to shelter from the collapse in the value of the rial amid the renewal of heavy US sanctions targeted at Iran. There has even been a surge of Iranians looking to pick up apartments and villas in Turkey.
During the seven-month period, the average price of one square metre of property sold by real estate agents in Tehran was IRR70.1mn, 55.4% higher
37 IRAN Country Report May 2019 www.intellinews.com