Machine summary:
In addition, the bill allows foreigners to hold more than 49 percent of companies operating inside Iran, and its passage in August marked a key step forward for President Mohammad Khatami' s goal of economic reform.
The project, which could be about $1 billion, is the largest 50-50 oil or gas contract signed with a foreign company since the victory of the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran.
In September, the Oil Minister Bijan Namdar• Zanganeh said Tehran expected some $10 billion in extra oil revenues by the end of the Iranian year.
Pointing to Iran's strategic position and its significance from the transit point of view in the region, President Khatami said that entering into joint ventures with foreign partners for cooperation in third countries has been placed in the agenda of government.
Elsewhere in his remarks, President Khatami pointed to the ongoing conference of the tourism ministers of Islamic countries in Isfahan, central Iran, and said efforts will be made that parallel with the promotion of non-oil exports and attraction of investment, the tourism industry will be developed as well.
*** Japan Grants Iran Insurance Cover for Mobile Deal Japan has provided insurance cover for an Iranian telecom project involving Japanese companies, the first since 1992 when Tokyo suspended commercial insurance coverage for Tehran after the country defaulted on its obligations to Japan, Iranian government sources said (Oct. 27).
The debt-GDP ratio is low by any standard and means that Iran should have more access to external financing in order to achieve the growth objectives of the country's Third Five-Year Economic Development Plan (March 2000- March 2005), he said.