Page 40 - IRANRptFeb19

Tehran’s metro system with satellite towns.
More than 150 metro stations are to be built by Khatam, but no price tag for the work has been publicised.
Iran and Germany signed s ix memorandums of understanding (MoUs) for cooperation in the transportation sector in 2016.
Germany has been angling to become the main European industrial and infrastructure partner of Iran.
Iran on December 17 urged the European Union to press US authorities to allow the delivery of Airbus passenger aircraft purchased by Tehran, Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA) reported.
Under Washington’s reimposed sanctions regime targeted at Tehran, the US Treasury revoked licensing that would have allowed Airbus to deliver 100 ordered aircraft to help IranAir upgrade its ageing fleet. The national carrier was also seeking 80 planes from Boeing and 20 from Franco-Italian turboprop maker ATR, but all the Boeing orders and seven planes in the ATR order have also run up against the sanctions. Three Airbus planes were delivered to Iran before the sanctions kicked in.
Though they are European, Airbus and ATR aircraft are subject to the sanctions because at least 10% of their components are US-made. Russia’s Sukhoi, which has been exploring supplying Iran with short-haul airliners is facing the same 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 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.
Airbus continues to list the Iran order as active on its books.
Boeing never officially added Iran’s order to its list of sold jets and has said it will not pursue the deal.
On December 12, Ali Abedzadeh, head of the Iranian Civil Aviation Organization (CAO), was quoted as saying Iran risks having to cancel domestic flights within a matter of months if US sanctions continue to frustrate the efforts of its airlines to replenish and expand their fleets.
9.1.4 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 East and Central Asia. They enjoy low Internet set-up costs. A succession of policies introduced by the Rouhani administration opened the floodgates to 3G and 4G technologies. An entirely new digital economy, including food and ride-hailing applications, as offered by the Snapp Group, for instance, has been created.
An SCI survey that took a snapshot last March 28 concluded that some 24mn homes in Iran and 17.9mn families had access to "superfast internet" connections. The results indicated a 10.5% year on year increase nationally. The figures also suggest that by March 2018, at least 69.7% of homes in Iran had at least one computer, and that within each of 17.2mn families someone had the ability to use a computer (up 8.4% y/y).
Overall, the number of Iranian Internet users now stands at 46.3mn people, or
40 IRAN Country Report February 2019 www.intellinews.com