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for hundreds of new and nearly-new planes shelved by manufacturers including Boeing and Airbus. The reintroduction of heavy US sanctions targeted at Tehran caused the aircraft producers to back away from supplying Iran. Non-US plane makers, such as Airbus, are subject to the threat of secondary sanctions because their planes contain major components supplied by US companies.
Facing the question as to whether the planes being bought were brand new, Eslami reportedly responded that "new or used does not make sense in aircraft purchases; they are very good planes, nonetheless".
The last delivery of new planes to Iran was ATR’s dispatching of 13 turbo-prop regional airliners to Iran before sanctions reimposed by the US kicked in last August.
Any plane with at least 10% of its components sourced from the US falls foul of the sanctions regime if delivered to Iran. Russia’s Sukhoi, which has been exploring supplying Iran with short-haul airliners, faces that dilemma. However, there have been local reports of Russian officials saying Sukhoi is working on scaling down the number of US parts with an eye on winning an Iranian order for up to 100 aircraft.
Iranian officials have previously pointed out that there is a humanitarian angle to aircraft supply, in that if Iranian airlines cannot get hold of new civilian aircraft there is a higher risk of accidents occurring.
“Our main concern is being able to serve our passengers better [and] we hope that the EU can get the OFAC [Office of Foreign Assets Control at the US Treasury] licences for delivery of purchased Airbus planes,” IranAir CEO Farzaneh Sharafbafi was cited by ISNA as saying in December.
9.1.4 Construction sector news
Iran has signed a contract with conflict-devastated Syria to construct 200,000 new dwellings, Tasnim News Agency reported on February 25. The deal between the government of Bashar al-Assad and the Islamic Republic is the latest in a string of post-civil war contracts signed between the allies following the Syrian army’s success, backed by forces including Russian and Iranian military, in defeating more than 90% of the opposition it has faced in the country. It is clear Damascus is quite prepared to give Iran something of a post-war dividend for its backing, though where the financing will come from for the wider, and massive, reconstruction that Syria needs is not yet at all worked out.
The deputy chief of the Mass Construction Association of Tehran province, Iraj Rahbar, said Iran and Syria have recently signed a number of agreements on civil construction, tourism and agriculture industry projects.
The deal states that Iran will build 200,000 dwellings in Syria in the form of “multifamily residential complexes”, mainly in Damascus, he added.
Iranian state construction firms have become adept at building apartment blocks in recent years at home and abroad, with several thousand projects sprouting up across Iran as well as Iraq.
9.1.5 TMT sector news
Around 72% of Iranian homes are connected to the internet, according to a Statistical Centre of Iran (SCI) report, the Financial Tribune has reported.
Statistically speaking, Iranian households and mobile phone users have been catapulted into the position of the most connected society in the wider Middle
40 IRAN Country Report March 2019 www.intellinews.com