TEHRAN – The Armenian agriculture minister David Lokyan said Iran and Armenia should develop their cooperation in agriculture and cattle husbandry.

In a meeting with his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Eskandari in the Armenian capital Yerevan on Tuesday, Lokyan asked for the supply of Iranian-made agricultural machinery to be used on the former soviet republic’s farmlands. For his part, Eskandari said the two sides should follow up the content of their Joint Economic Committee meetings.

New refinery to be built in Kermanshah

KERMANSHAH – A new refinery with a daily refining capacity of 150,000 barrels will be built in this western city, managing director of Kermanshah Oil Refining Company announced on Tuesday.

The feasibility studies of the project are currently underway, Hushangi added, noting the project would need a total of 1.5 billion dollars of investment. This provincial capital has already a refinery, second oldest in the country after Abadan’s refinery, which has a daily refining capacity of 30,000 barrels. It came into operation 71 years ago with a 4,200-barrel refining capacity. In 1961, it was developed by a Dutch company so that it could refine 15,000 barrels of crude a day in 1971.

Iran’s furniture better than Turkey’s: industrialist

TEHRAN – The Iranian-made furniture is of a better quality than the Turkish-made stuff, a furniture industrialist has told ISNA.

“However, we lack the equipments that help us design the kind of furniture that would look finer and more modern than what we are making now,” Saburi stated, complaining about the import of low-quality furniture from China, Vietnam and Taiwan. “Iranian furniture manufacturers produce high quality products while some businessmen keep importing this low-quality stuff,” he said. In the first six months of the current Iranian year (March 21-September 22), Iran exported $14 million of furniture, showing a 3-fold increase compared to the same period last year.

Water tables sinking lower in Hamedan

HAMEDAN – Excessive use of water from water tables has made these irreplaceable resources sink lower and lower in this western Iranian province, IRNA reported.

Some 2 billion cubic meters of water is pumped out of these tables every year while the total volume of water from rainfall reaches 3.5 billion cubic meters. The extracted volume has not decreased this year while there has been a reduction in rainfall. In the past 20 years, the level of water at these water tables has gone 1 meter down.

Date export to rise 40% this year

TEHRAN – This year’s export of dates is projected to increase by 40% compared to the same period last year, an official with the Agricultural Jihad Ministry claimed on Tuesday.

In the last Iranian year (ended March 20, 2006), Iran exported over 60 million dollars of dates, he added, noting that some one million tons of dates is produced in the country every year. Date palm groves cover an area of over 250,000 hectares across Iran.

Ardebil will lose 30% of its livestock if not vaccinated soon: vet official

ARDEBIL – A local veterinary official said that 30 percent of this northern province’s livestock population will die if not vaccinated soon.

“Some $1.2 million has so far been allocated for the provincial veterinary department’s projects,” he said, adding the livestock should be vaccinated against smallpox, foot and mouth disease and typhoid.