Everyone, everything against Tehran Municipality!
The Head of the Road, Housing and Urban Development Research Center, Mohammad Shekarchizadeh, calls the construction of high-rise buildings by Tehran municipality, a violation of regulations: “In 2007, the Supreme Council for Urban Planning and Architecture established regulations making the municipality responsible for limiting high-rise constructions. These regulations had the ability to prevent the current problems.”
The construction of building with more than 12 floors in small passageways will lead to severe difficulties in dealing with emergencies such as fires and earthquakes; there are hundreds of such buildings in alleys of 6-meters-width, according to Mr Shekarchizadeh. The unprincipled construction of high-rises has also prevented effective air circulation which has led to air pollution throughout the city. In order to finance itself, the municipality has commenced with selling licenses for the construction of towers.
“From 2013 to now, the municipality has received 115 trillion IRRs ($3.5b) from taxes and tariffs which is three times as that of the previous Government. Therefore, there is no excuse for selling high-rise licenses”, added Mr Shekarchizadeh.
Iran Khodro builds new platform
Iran Khodro (IKCO), the biggest Iranian car manufacturer, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with German, Italian, Belgian, South Korean companies to design and build new production platforms in a collaboration with the Iranian companies and institutions.
To develop electric and hybrid cars, two parties in the agreement are Sharif University of Technology and Amir-Kabir University of Technology (Polytechnic of Tehran).
The agreed investment is 270 million USD and its legal arrangements is underway. Iran Khodro introduces this agreement as the largest contract signed in the automobile industry since lifting the sanctions in January 2016. German Benteler and Mahle, Italian Pininfarina, and South Korean Hyundai are also partners of this ten-sided consortium.
New investment projects of Industry and Mining Bank
The Industry and Mining Bank approved 153 million Euros in financing for the construction of Makran Steel in Chabahar in the province of Sistan and Baluchistan. Thus, the total financing offered by this bank to steel projects across the country has reached 3 billion Euros. The Makran Steel project will directly provide employment for 300 people.
Based on statistics from the Industry and Mining Bank, half of the country’s steel production capacity has been financed by this bank in the past four years.
Read More about Industry and Mining Bank Projects
The number of addicts drops
The Minister of Labor and Social Welfare, Ali Rabiei, announced the 35% decrease in the number of drug addicts in the last 4 years, via his Telegram channel. Mr Rabiei wrote that in previous periods, statistics show 3 million drug addicts across the country. He believes that in Iran addiction does not correlate with poverty, and drug abuse can be viewed among different groups such as university students, employees and housewives. Issuing licenses to NGOs, increasing rehabilitation time from one to six months and employing skilled doctors and psychologists are reasons for this decrease.
