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According to Young Journalists Club (YJC), the French carmaker cited its monthly sales figures which show that sales to Iran increased by 82.6 percent in the first eight months of 2017. "The Renault Group has sold 99,617 vehicles to Iran," the report said.

Renault's share of the Iranian market grew from 3.5 percent to 10 percent in the said eight months against the figure for the same period last year.

The company's sales in August amounted to 14,591 units — down 13 percent from July 2017.

Renault's sales were 16,733 units in July, but in total, its sales grew 27 percent compared to the figure for August 2016.

In August 2017, Renault's share of the Iranian market was 9.7 percent, which indicates a 0.2-percent increase in comparison to the same period last year.

Renault sold 2.43 million vehicles between January and August, which is 10.7 percent more than in the same period in 2016.

Renault has said the role of the Iranian market has been so important that the company's sales doubled in one year. Tondar and Sandro sold more than the others in the Iranian market.

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Abbas Akhoundi was speaking in a meeting with France's Secretary of State Jean Baptiste Lemoyne held at his ministry on Wednesday and attended by representatives and executive officials of 14 French companies.

After listening to the proposals of the French firms, Akhoundi said, "Fortunately, the meetings between Iran and France have developed into continuous talks and the number of contracts between the two countries are increasing. At present, the financing of these projects is the only important issue."

The Iranian minister added talks with the French government on financing joint ventures have helped the two sides come up with a solution involving France granting treasury loans to Iran, the proposal of which is to be presented clearly to Tehran by Paris.

Akhoundi said, "The loan document has been signed by French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire and delivered to Iran by Lemoyne. The move by the French government marked a new era of financial relations between‌ Tehran and Paris."

He voiced optimism that the negotiations between the two governments and banking systems would lead to the adoption of positive strategies, adding, "We expect that European countries support European companies to actively participate in Iran's market."

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A KOGAS official said the company was looking to diversify its import sources as supply contracts with Qatar and Oman were set to expire by 2015.

"Iran is rich in natural gas so we would like to work closely with both public and private energy companies there," the official was quoted as saying by Korea Times.

In May 2016, Iran awarded a deal to conduct technical studies on the offshore Balal gas field in the Persian Gulf to KOGAS.

An Iranian official said in June that the country was working on a plan to develop small-size gas liquefaction units with South Korean companies, including KOGAS.

Saeed Pakseresht, director for research and development affairs of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIGC), was quoted as saying that a consortium from Iran and another from South Korea, including Oceanus and KOGAS, would be involved in the scheme.

"We do not have the technology to develop mini-LNG plants, but joining hands with companies such as Oceanus consortium and KOGAS is an important first step to develop our LNG sector," he said.

Korean companies are also expanding involvement in Iran's massive oil sector. Last month, South Korea's SK Engineering and Construction Co (SKEC) signed heads of agreement for a €1.6 billion upgrade of Tabriz refinery.

A separate $2 billion contract is about to be signed with South Korea's Daelim company to boost oil processing capacity at Isfahan refinery, according to Abbas Kazemi, who is Iran's deputy oil minister.

South Korea's imports of Iranian crude oil increased 40.2 percent in August from the same month a year earlier, Reuters reported on Friday, citing customs data.

The Asian country is a major client of Iran's condensate, an ultra-light high quality oil. According to the Reuters report, South Korea imported 12.22 million tons, or 368,529 bpd, of oil from Iran in the first eight months of 2017 — up 46.7 percent from 8.33 million tons during the same period the year before.

Meanwhile, Royal Dutch Shell said it is preparing to bid for development of Iran's giant Azadegan field after putting an end to a century of oil production in neighboring Iraq.

Shell has submitted the results of its feasibility studies on South Azadegan and Yadavaran fields to National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), Shana reported.

Both fields lie across the Iraqi border in Iran's strategic West Karoun oil cluster. Shell signed a basic agreement with NIOC in December 2016 to study the investment potentials in South Azadegan and Yadavaran as well as Kish gas field.

South Azadegan, discovered in 2001, has recoverable reserves of about two billion barrels. It is believed to be connected with Iraq's Majnoon field from which Shell has decided to withdraw.

The decision announced by Shell on Wednesday came after long-running talks on a planned output expansion from current levels of 220,000 barrels per day appeared to founder.

The Anglo-Dutch firm said it had agreed with Iraq's oil ministry to relinquish operations at Majnoon field to the government after unfavorable changes to fiscal terms.

Shell is also selling its 20 percent stake in West Qurna 1 oilfield in southern Iraq which is operated by Exxon Mobil.

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The contracts reflect "a strong will for continuation of cooperation between the two countries", Seif was quoted as saying by AFP.

The credit line will use euros and yuan to help bypass US sanctions that have continued despite the nuclear deal between Iran and world powers in 2015.

Seif added that officials from Exim Bank of China will travel to Iran in coming days to finalize a $10-billion letter of credit.

China was a signatory to the deal that lifted sanctions in exchange for curbs to Iran's nuclear program.

President Xi Jinping visited Iran a week after it came into effect, vowing to boost bilateral trade to $600 billion within a decade.

China is already Iran's biggest oil customer and accounts for a third of its overall trade.

Since the lifting of sanctions, Beijing has opened two credit lines worth $4.2 billion to build high-speed railway lines linking Tehran with Mashhad and Isfahan.

The latest move follows an eight-billion-euro credit deal signed with South Korea's Exim bank last month.

European banks remain wary of penalties from Washington for working with Iran, but talks are said to be at an advanced stage for $22 billion in credit deals with banks from Austria, Denmark and Germany.

China's new $10 billion credit line will go to Iran's Refah Kargaran, San'at va Ma'dan, Parsian, Pasargad and Tose'e Saderat banks.

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The CASPINDEXPO 2017 which is underway in Baku, Azerbaijan, will be a good opportunity for the Iranian businesspersons to find new markets for their products, Javad Jahangirzadeh said.

About Tehran-Baku ties, the envoy noted that Iran will play more active role in the auto market in the northern neighboring country of Azerbaijan in the near future.
The three-day international industrial exhibition, CASPINDEXPO – 2017, kicked off in Baku Expo Center on Wednesday.

Companies from 15 foreign countries have taken part in the industrial event. Among total 52 participating companies, 20 are from Iran and the remaining from other states.

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Iran Air chief Farzaneh Sharafbafi was quoted by Press TV as saying that she expected the new turboprop planes to help further increase the capabilities of her airline.  

Sharafbafi emphasized that her airline needed to implement rapid changes to retain the position that it had at home and in the region.

The new planes will be part of 20 ATR 72-600s which Iran Air signed with the Franco-Italian aircraft manufacturer early this year as part of the Iranian flag carrier’s bid to rebuild its fleet after years of sanctions.

Iran took delivery of the first four ATR aircraft in May, with the rest due to be handed over to the country by the end of 2018, including a total of five this year.   

The planes will be operating among regional cities as part of a commercial plan, covering a populous crescent straddling Iran’s northwest and northeast.

Iran’s aviation officials had already said the ATR fleet may be based in the Caspian city of Rasht to connect small towns to big cities such as Tabriz and Mashhad in Iran and the Azerbaijani capital of Baku.

Iran Air’s deal with ATR includes options for a further 20 aircraft and a training program for Iranian pilots and engineers.

Iran is also renovating its aging fleet for international or long-distance flights under deals signed with Airbus and Boeing to buy a total of 180 passenger jets.

The country has so far received three Airbus jets and will get another by end-year. The first Boeing is due around May 2018.

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Iran’s gas exports have recently witnessed a major surge after the country increased its gas output from the South Pars field by 25 billion cubic meters in the second half of the last fiscal year.

According to Jamshidi Dana, Iran’s gas supply to the domestic power plants in the five-month period also increased by five percent to stand at 33 billion cubic meters.

Meanwhile, Iranian industrial sector saw an increase of 3.5 percent in its gas input, receiving 15 billion cubic meters of gas in the mentioned period.

The supplies of the South Pars Gas Complex (SPGC) in the five-month period also increased by 16 percent reaching 54 billion cubic meters. According to Masoud Hassani, the head of SPGC, the South Pars gas field accounted for 65 percent of the gas consumed in the country in this period.

Iran refined about 205 billion cubic meters of gas over the last fiscal year. The country’s gas imports over the last year stood at six billion cubic meters and its exports hit nine billion cubic meters.

While the output of South Pars increased by 25 billion cubic meters over the last fiscal year compared to the preceding year to reach 155 billion cubic meters, second half of the year accounted for the lion’s share of the huge surge in production level.

Back on April 16, President Hassan Rouhani inaugurated $20 billion worth of energy projects in the city of Asalouyeh in Bushehr Province, bringing five phases of the South Pars gas field, four petrochemical projects, as well as the South Pars oil layer on stream.

South Pars is part of a huge offshore field, shared with Qatar in the Persian Gulf. The field is estimated to hold about 8 percent of the world’s natural gas reserves.

The country also considerably increased the amount of its gas supply to power plants and large industrial units in the five-month period.

Iraq and Turkey are among the major gas customers of Iran. The Islamic Republic earlier on June 22 launched the export of seven million cubic meters of gas per day to the Arab country.

Iran and Iraq had earlier concluded two agreements on exporting gas. The first agreement envisages gas export to Baghdad and the second one offers Iran to export gas to Iraqi city of Basra through a pipeline crossing Shalamcheh. Iran’s gas is expected to be used in power generation in Iraq.

Turkey’s gas imports from Iran in the first half of 2017 increased by 23 percent, hitting 4.7 billion cubic meters.

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"We are in talks with Singapore and we are close to conclusion of negotiations with Iran," he said, noting that the talks are complicated.

Earlier, Trade Minister of the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) Veronika Nikishina said that EEC can request a mandate for signing a temporary free trade zone (FTZ) agreement between Iran and the EEU in October 2017.

On August 14, the chairman of EEC Tigran Sargsyan said temporary agreement on establishing a free trade zone between the EEU and Iran may be signed in 2017.

Speaking to reporters following a meeting of the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council in Astana, Kazakhstan, he said, "The decision has been taken to speed up the work to sign the agreement with Iran. We expect the document to be signed in 2017."

Negotiations between the EEU and Iran on a temporary free trade zone agreement are expected to be completed by the next summit, scheduled for October 11, Sputnik reported.

In June, the EEC, with is the bloc's main executive body, said that the EEU and Iran had finished working on the text of the temporary free trade zone agreement and that the sides will continue talks on liberalizing mutual market access and coordinating tariff obligations in the near future.

Earlier, Iran's Ambassador to Russia Mehdi Sanaei said that the country is interested in economic projects of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) member states, the EEU and the Chinese Silk Road.

In 2016, Russia and Iran agreed to pay for products in national currencies, thus stepping up economic cooperation.

The EEU, which includes Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, is an international organization that encourages regional economic integration through the free movement of goods, services and people within the union.

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The launch ceremony of the international freight train from Yinchuan to Tehran was held in Beijing on Tuesday.

The journey is just part of China's huge plan to be implemented with a budget of $ 124 billion and cooperation of regional countries.

According to China's People Daily, the train is carrying 560 metric tons of machinery, automobile spare parts, ceramics, glassware, and daily commodities and is scheduled to reach Tehran in about 15 days traveling via Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

Liang Hua, whose company is in charge of the operation, said, “The train takes more than 20 days less than transporting by ship, and is expected to greatly lower our delivery costs.”

According to local officials from Ningxia's Department of Commerce, the new cargo route will help to increase trade between China and countries in central and west Asia.

China is launching a train to Iran for the second time; the first train entered Iran after traveling 10,000km last year. The train had come from Yiwu, Zhejiang Province, eastern China.

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The IRAN PLAST exhibition offers an excellent opportunity to meet key players in Iran's plastics processing sector; this is why a France pavilion is being organized at the expo for the first time by Business France, the national agency supporting the internationalization of the French economy in partnership with UCAPLAST (Union des syndicats des PME du caoutchouc et de la plasturgie).

Iran, thanks to its petrochemicals industry, has the advantage of low cost access to raw materials to develop the plastics processing industry. The availability of significant amounts of raw materials and polymerized products is the keystone of this sector, within which National Petrochemical Company (NPC) plays a prominent role.

Despite a slowdown in industrial production over the last two years, the agri-foodstuffs and automotive industries plus those of the construction sector are expected to continue to drive demand, which is estimated to be, on average, 18 kg per inhabitant per year in Iran.

This growth is particularly strong in the area of food packaging and PET bottling. Current needs of Iranian companies are above all in technical, industrial and financial partnerships in the automotive sector (60 percent), agro-foodstuffs packaging (25 percent) and other industries (15 percent).

These are all good reasons why French companies should take advantage of the opening up of the country to offer innovative know-how and products, and to meet, swap ideas and negotiate with future Iranian partners or clients.

French plastics processing is a growth sector. Sales (€29.7 billion in 2016) grew three times faster on average than those for manufacturing as a whole. It concerns over 100 sectors that produce or use plastic. France's position as a major global plastics market is stable, being ranked 6th in terms of sales.

French plastics processing industry is characterized amongst other things by its dynamic investment in R&D — plastics specialists have been reinvesting in innovation since 2014 and the creation of the CTI (Centre Technique Industriel) is contributing to R&D efforts in the sector.

Internationally, French plastics processing saw a sharp upswing in 2015 and 2016, with growth rates of +5 percent and +6.5 percent respectively. Most of this growth came from the EU, but performance was also strong in Africa and Asia.

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