Page 49 - IRANRptMay21

Some 70% of jobs have been lost in Iran’s hotel industry in the past year, with local tourism essentially non-existent on a short-term perspective, he added. Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, 240,000 people were directly employed and 550,000 were indirectly employed in the Iranian tourism industry, industry estimates suggest.
9.1.6 TMT sector news
Iran’s ICT ministry backs plan for domestic production of 14mn smartphones and tablets
Iran to cut bandwidth tariffs by 25%
Iran removes monopoly of Telecommunication
Iran's Deputy Minister of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Sattar Hashemi has announced the start of a five-year plan for the domestic production of 14mn smartphones and tablets.
Jobs for more than 43,000 people and savings on imports amounting to over $1bn would be achieved by the programme, IRNA reported the official as saying.
The new Iranian calendar year (started March 20) has been given the motto “Year of Production: Support and Elimination of Obstacles” by the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Hashemi reportedly said.
A main goal of the programme is enabling domestic companies to produce one fifth of the smartphones needed in the country.
For the initiative, the ICT ministry is cooperating with institutions and enterprises including the National Planning and Budget Organization (PBO), the Ministry of Industry, Mining and Trade, the National Virtual Space Center, and private sector companies active in the production and import of smartphones.
Iranian mobile phone traders imported 15.8mn smartphones over the previous Iranian calendar year (ended on March 19), according to the Iranian Association of Cellphones, Tablet, and Accessories Importers.
In January, a spokesman for the that association said the average price of cellphones had dropped 12-20% on the domestic market, the Tehran Times reported.
A 25% reduction in Iran’s internet bandwidth tariffs has been approved by the Iranian Radio Regulatory Authority (RRA), the deputy minister of communications announced on February 1.
The move aims to reduce the end cost to the consumer for both ADSL and mobile fourth-generation (4G) internet, as well as boost investment through increasing take-up of the modern technologies in the country.
Hossein Fallah Joshaghani, head of the RRA told IRNA he hoped major operators Mobile Communications of Iran (MCI), Telecommunications Company of Iran (Mokhabarat) and MTN-Irancell would now pass the cost reduction on to the consumer.
"There is a logic in the world that when consumption goes up, the tariff and price goes down," he said.
He further noted: “Due to the increase in consumption, after evaluation, we reduced the price of bandwidth costs that operators receive from the national infrastructure by 25%.”
Iran remains one of the cheapest countries in the world per megabyte. Per megabyte internet costs are some 80-90% cheaper than they are in regional countries including Turkey and Azerbaijan, with Iranian operators acting as data hubs in recent years for foreign subscribers.
Iran’s Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Mohammad-Javad Azari Jahromi, has announced a telecoms infrastructure shake-up involving the lifting of the monopoly held by the
49 IRAN Country Report May 2021 www.intellinews.com