Page 40 - IRANRptMay19

popular choices in recent years.
According to the cited data, since the beginning of this year, Iran’s overall power capacity has increased by 1,005 MW.
During the summer months, the country endured successive power cuts throughout its national grid given massive use of air conditioning units amid temperatures of above 40 degrees Celsius.
The government is under increasing pressure to get as many alternative forms of power generation as possible online, with several projects involving working in conjunction with foreign companies.
During the summer, Iranian Energy Minister Reza Ardakanian said 27 power plant projects, worth IRR70tn (around €1.5bn), would be inaugurated by the summer of 2019.
Meanwhile, Iran currently draws roughly 53 MW of power from solar generation, energy ministry data shows. It is attempting to add 932 MW in the next few years in line with deals signed already.
In a bid to grow the renewables industry in the country, Iran has signed several agreements with European, Asian and African solar panel firms in recent years. The government offers a 13-year tax break for investors in the sector.
9.1.12 Defence sector news
Big military spending hikes took place in Turkey, Armenia, the Baltics and across Central and Eastern Europe in 2019, while notable expenditure increases also occurred in Bulgaria and Romania, according to new data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) . Iran, meanwhile, facing dire economic straits because of the hostility of the Trump administration, saw a clear reduction in the amount it spent on its military. “The increases in Central and Eastern Europe are largely due to growing perceptions of a threat from Russia,” said Pieter Wezeman, a senior researcher with the SIPRI AMEX programme. “This is despite the fact that Russian military spending has fallen for the past two years.”
At $61.4bn, Russian military spending was the sixth highest in the world in 2018, the figures posted in SIPRI's Trends in World Military Spending report showed. Such spending by Moscow decreased by 3.5% compared with 2017. Military spending in Turkey increased by 24% in 2018 to $19.0bn, marking the highest annual percentage increase among the world’s top 15 military spenders, the institute said.
Several countries in Central and Eastern Europe made large increases in their military expenditure in 2018, SIPRI observed.
Countries with the highest relative increases in military spending in 2018 according to the new data included Armenia (up 33%), Bosnia-Herzegovina (26%), Bulgaria (23%), Ukraine, Romania (18%), and Kazakhstan (16%). Armenia's total expenditure, at $609mn, was 4.8% of GDP, taking its military spending burden to among the top 10 in the world, along with Russia at 3.9 percent.
Iran’s military spending fell 9.5% in 2018 to $13.2bn as the country’s economy contracted and its currency collapsed in the face of renewed heavy economic sanctions imposed by the US.
Military expenditure by the US (up 6.4% to $649bn) climbed for the first time since 2010, with the spending equivalent to 3.2% of GDP.
9.1.13 Utilities sector news
40 IRAN Country Report May 2019 www.intellinews.com
Tehran’s Ambassador to the UK Hamid Baeidinejad is looking into a