Economy

US company World Eco Energy has signed a preliminary agreement to invest $1.175 billion to generate electricity in Iran. The plan is to turn solid waste into power.
Representatives from the American company and the Chaharmahal-Bakhtiari Province Governor General, Malek-Mohammad Qorbanpour, signed the deal, the Tehran Times reported.
It is expected the project will create 650 immediate jobs, with another 2,000 emerging over the next two to three years, Oorbanpour told the IRNA news agency. Local companies will also be investing the same amount of money into the project.

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By Aurélia

Paris (AFP) – As the world’s reserve currency, the dollar gives Washington a powerful influence over global financial markets — a point underlined again this week when a record fine was levelled against France’s leading bank.
French banking giant BNP Paribas has agreed to pay $8.9 billion (6.5 billion euros) to US authorities for violating sanctions against Iran, Sudan and other countries even though the transactions were not illegal under French or European law.

It fell foul of US rules because the exchanges were carried out in dollars, and the huge penalty has sent shockwaves across Europe where other major banks such as Credit Agricole, Deutsche Bank and UniCredit fear they could be next in the cross-hairs of the US authorities.
For some, it is a sign that Europe must wean itself off the dollar.
“The global reach of American standards through the use of the dollar should push Europe to boost the euro as an international exchange currency,” French Finance Minister Michel Sapin said after the fine was announced.
US authorities were able to catch BNP’s embargo violations by monitoring clearing houses for large interbank transactions.

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By Leonid Bershidsky

It’s not the projected size of the fine — $8 billion to $9 billion. It’s not even the demand to fire specific employees. No, as BNP Paribas prepares to settle claims by U.S. authorities that it has transacted some $30 billion worth of business in violation of U.S. international sanctions, the part of the settlement most likely to stick in Gallic throats (and cause a bit of choking elsewhere) is a ban on clearing dollar transactions.

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By Amir Paivar April 3rd 2014
The honeymoon with the new government is over. Iranians are coming back from their New Year holidays to see their utility bills go up, some by 24%.

Petrol prices are also due to rise, a move that usually prompts discontent and triggers inflation.
Starved of cash, President Hassan Rouhani’s government has no choice but to cut state subsidies for fuel and energy.

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April 2, 2014 – 1:23pm, by Marianna Grigoryan
Natural gas flares at a processing facility of the South Pars gas field near the Iranian town of Kangan in January 2014. Armenia recently announced an agreement to increase its import of natural gas from Iran to two billion cubic meters per year – an increase of 75 percent.

Mystery is swirling around a deal to boost Iranian natural gas exports to Armenia: why does the Kremlin seem to be going along with the idea?
On March 19, Armenian Energy Minister Armen Movsisian announced that Armenia plans to increase its imports of gas from neighboring Iran to 2 billion cubic meters per year, an increase of nearly 75 percent over the current annual volume. In exchange, Armenia would export electricity to Iran.

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Financial Times 26th March, 2014

Washington is “bullying” UK banks into refusing to support legal exports to Iran, costing British companies hundreds of millions of pounds in lost sales, senior politicians claimed at Westminster on Wednesday.

While US exports to Iran have been rising, Washington is suspected by British parliamentarians of using extraterritorial threats to hinder UK companies wanting to legally export food, pharmaceuticals and medical devices to Iran.

MoreOn this topic Bank stress tests focus on shocks Lenders seek to ease levy burden Scheme to boost small business lending UK ‘challenger’ banks plan £10bn listingsIN UK Politics & Policy Former ‘spad’ says ministers kept in dark Farmland and business tax reliefs double Miliband tries to charm small business UK census to be mainly online from 2021Jack Straw, the former Labour foreign secretary, and Norman Lamont, former Tory chancellor, claim Washington’s behaviour is a direct challenge to British sovereignty.

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