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been attacked by both Iran and Russia i n recent months, while the UK has warned the secure messaging app is being used by Islamic State militants in Syria. However, it is concerns such as the service’s usefulness when it comes to secretly organising anti-regime demonstrations that is thought to have unnerved Tehran and Moscow, the latter of which has demanded the service’s encryption keys from its co-founder, self-exiled Russian Pavel Durov. Organisers of the nationwide protests that took place in Iran over December and January are known to have used Telegram.
State television report said the Tehran prosecutor was ordering internet service providers to block the cloud-based service in such a way that users would not be able to bypass the ban by using a VPN.
The order was issued one day after the app went down across several time zones on April 29.
The rampant smuggling of mobile phones into Iran has been reduced to almost zero, according to an April 22 tweet by the country’s Telecommunications and Information Technology Minister, Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi. The drop in the smuggling rate is attributed to the Iranian government's implementation of regulations stating that no phone will be connected to Iran's mobile networks unless it has been registered following a purchase from an officially recognised company. Also, the IMEI number, a code unique to every phone, must be recorded on the official database.
Azari Jahromi tweeted in Persian that “the rampant smuggling of mobile phones has been reduced to almost zero as a consequence of e-government policies”. Iran recorded non-black market mobile phone imports numbering 3.2mn handsets in the last Persian year (ended March 20), marking a 112% y/y gain, Tasnim News Agency reported on April 16. The sudden spike in imports was down to the Rouhani administration’s push to shut down the wholesale black market for mobile phones.
9.1.5 Agriculture sector news
Iranian saffron producers have listed their highly valuable commodity as a derivative future on the Iran Mercantile Exchange, Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported on May 24. The idea of selling the lucrative commodity produced in Iran by the kilo on the exchange was long floated and the move followed months of preparation. Several government body approvals were needed before the rare flower stem used as a spice could be upgraded to become a tradable commodity on the exchange.
Around 85% of the world’s saffron is produced in Iran and industry figures believe that with this level of production, it is the natural right of Iranian players to devise the basis for global stock exchange trading in saffron and to set the global base price for the product.
According to a press circular released by the Iran Mercantile Exchange, the listings expiration date is set for September 11, with each contract consisting of 100 grams of premium saffron as its underlying asset including a 3% fluctuation cap.
On the first day of trading, 102.7kg of crown saffron transferred hands, with 1,027 contracts signed. The average price per gram on the day was IRR67,800 to IRR70,000, Tasnim News Agency reported. The current price for each kilogram of Iranian-produced saffron stands at a minimum of €658 for low-quality saffron and tops out at €1,094 for the highest quality.
34 IRAN Country Report June 2018 www.intellinews.com