TEHRAN – The annual steel production at the Khuzestan Steel Complex is projected to reach 3.2 million tons by the end of the Fourth Development Plan (2005-10), an official from the company said.

Sharifi put the current output of the complex at 2.3 million tons, pointing to slabs, billets, and blooms as the KSC’s main products. He then put the factory’s hourly industrial wastes at 2,200 cubic meters, adding, “We will soon build a water treatment plan with a purification capacity of 5,000 cubic meters p/h.”

E. Azarbaijan non-oil exports to Iraq exceed $160m

TABRIZ, East Azarbaijan Prov. – In excess of 160 million dollars of non-oil commodities was exported to Iraq via this northwestern Iranian province in the first half of the current Iranian year (March 21-September 22, 2006).

Chocolates and candies, ironware, shoes, and home appliances were the main commodities exported to this neighboring country. This accounted for 22% of the province’s non-oil exports in the said period which totaled 750 million dollars, up 33% from last year’s figure.

Tehran’s intl. exhibition center hosting Iran Telecom 2006

TEHRAN – The seventh edition of Iran’s international telecommunications and information technology exhibition, Iran Telecom 2006, kicked off at the Tehran Permanent International Fairground on Thursday.

Some 122 Iranian companies and 41 foreign companies from Taiwan, Portugal, Australia, Finland, France, South Korea, Poland, Holland, Spain, Germany, the UAE, Turkey, China, Russia, and the UK have displayed their products with their state-of-the-art achievements in the related fields, including communication cables, new mobile phone technologies and SMS services, multimedia communication networks, and satellite communication.

The fair will end on Sunday October 29.

Call for changing saffron export policy

TEHRAN – Bulk export of saffron from Iran should not be allowed any more, the managing director of Khorasan Razavi Rural Cooperatives Union has told ILNA.

“Instead, we should work on using modern packaging techniques in order to avoid underpriced sales of huge amount of saffron to Europe, especially to Spain,” Pejmanpur added, noting that Spain has been, in the past few years, largely benefiting from importing saffron from Iran and selling it to the world at much higher prices after putting the bulk neatly into stylish packages.

“Sometimes, they even remove Iranian companies’ trademarks and sell our saffron with their own brand names,” he stated, urging the government to support saffron producers by preparing a comprehensive plan for officially introducing an Iranian brand to the world market.

FAO to hold workshop on bird flu in Tehran

TEHRAN – A four-day workshop on bird flu will be held here this week by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) office in Tehran.

Representatives from Iran, Afghanistan, Turkey, Pakistan, Azerbaijan Republic, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan are to attend the workshop, which will kick off on Monday October 30. The global strategic methods for combating and controlling the fatal disease will be introduced by the UN experts during the workshop.

The Asian Development Bank is reportedly supporting the bird flu control program in the Asia-Pacific region.