The 14th International Exhibition of Gold, Silver, Jewelry, Watches, and Related Industries is going to be held at Tehran Permanent International Fairgrounds during February 21-24, IRIB reported.

Well-known companies active in the jewelry industry are going to showcase their latest products and achievements in this four-day exhibition.

Gold, silver, antiques, pearls, precious stones, cut ornaments and jewelry, watches, as well as jewelry-related machines, tools, and equipment are among the items presented at this international exhibition. /T.T/

The 39th edition of Iran’s International Quran Competition opened at Tehran’s Islamic Summit Conference Hall on Saturday evening. Fifty-two reciters and memorizers from across the world are participating in the competition, which will run for four days.

Mehdi Khamushi, director of the State Endowment and Charity Affairs Organization, the main organizer of the Quran competition, said that this year’s contest is organized with the motto “One Book, One Ummah”.

He added that the participants have been selected from 150 reciters and memorizers, which took part in the preliminary stage of the competition.

Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Mohammad-Mehdi Esmaeili and Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf were among the guests at the opening ceremony of the event.

Earlier in December, the director of the Quran Affairs Center of the State Endowment and Charity Affairs Organization, Hamid Majidimehr, said that the participants have been selected with contributions from the embassies of Iran across the world.

He added, “The 2023 competition has been arranged in a way that the entries have deservedly been selected for the contest.”

In order to support the local currency, he noted that the winners will be awarded cash in rials, the standard unit of money in Iran.

Top winners in different categories will be awarded 1.5 billion rials (about $3,200 based on Iran’s free-market exchange rate: $1 = 470,000 rials).

Runners-up will be awarded 1.2 billion rials and third-place winners will receive a cash prize of 900 million rials.

He did not make any comment about the cash prizes for overseas winners.

The International Quran Competition is organized annually a few weeks before Ramadan at Tehran’s Islamic Summit Conference Hall.

The Quran Channel of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting records recitations every year to air during the fasting month.

Due to the new coronavirus epidemic in the country, the 2020 International Quran Competition was postponed and the pandemic forced the 2021 competition to go online. /T.T/

The value of Iran’s export to the U.S. increased by nine-fold in 2022, IRNA reported citing the latest statistics released by the American Statistical Association (ASA).

According to the ASA data, the Islamic Republic exported $11.2 million worth of goods to the U.S. in the past year, registering a nine-fold increase compared to 2021. Iran exported commodities valued at only $1.2 million to the U.S. in 2021.

The value of trade between Iran and the U.S. rose to $56.7 million in 2022, 40 percent more than the figure for the previous year, based on the ASA data.

According to the mentioned data, the trade between the two countries stood at $40.5 million in 2021.

The ASA data shows that the value of U.S. export to Iran also increased 16 percent to $45.5 million in the January-December 2022 period, from $39.3 million in the previous year.

Iran was ranked 175th among U.S. export destinations in 2021 and 172nd among the country’s top import sources. /T.T/

The acclaimed Iranian films “World War III” and “Beyond the Wall” will be competing in the 51st edition of the Belgrade International Film Festival in Serbia.

In addition “Banu”, a co-production of Azerbaijan, Iran and Italy, will be screened at the festival, which will take place from February 24 to March 5 in the Serbian capital.

Directed by Hooman Seyyedi, “World War III” was Iran’s submission to the international feature award at the 2023 Oscars, but it failed to enter the shortlist of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Winner of the Orizzonti Award for best film at the 79th Venice International Film Festival, the film follows Shakib, a homeless day laborer who never got over the loss of his wife and son in an earthquake years ago.

Over the last couple of years, he has developed a relationship with a deaf and mute woman, Ladan. The construction site on which he works today turns out to be the set for a film about the atrocities committed by Hitler during WWII. Against all odds, he is given a movie role, a house and a chance at being somebody. When Ladan learns about this, she comes to his workplace begging for help. Shakib’s scheme to hide her goes tragically wrong and threatens to ruin his newfound status and what seemed to be the opportunity of a lifetime.

“Beyond the Wall” by Vahid Jalilvand is about a blind man whose suicide attempt is interrupted by his building’s concierge who informs him of an escaped woman’s hideout in the building. It becomes the blind man’s goal to help her.

Written and directed by Tahmina Rafaella, “Banu” tells the story of a woman, who is accused of being an unfit mother by her influential husband. Now, she fights for the custody of her son amid the chaos of the final days of the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War. She has four days to find a single voice to speak on her behalf. /T.T/

The Webometrics Ranking of World Universities 2023 has ranked three Iranian medical sciences universities among the top institutions across the world.

Also known as Ranking Web of Universities, the Webometrics Ranking of World Universities is a ranking system for the world’s universities based on a composite indicator that takes into account both the volume of the Web content (number of web pages and files) and the visibility and impact of these web publications according to the number of external links (site citations) they received.

Launched in 2004, the ranking is updated every January and July. In 2021, it provided Web indicators for more than 31,000 universities worldwide.

Tehran University of Medical Sciences tops the list of Iranian universities included in this ranking, followed by Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, and Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, ISNA reported.

Between January and July of 2022 and 2023, the ranking results of the country’s medical sciences universities in the Webometrics ranking system show that Tehran University of Medical Sciences ranked first with 17 steps of growth compared to last year.

Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences ranked second with 26 steps of growth, and Tabriz University of Medical Sciences won third place with 16 steps of growth.

Other rankings

The 2023 ranking of the Times Higher Education has placed a number of Iranian universities among its top institutes in terms of education.

Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences comes first among the Iranian universities with a rank in the range of 351–400.

Islamic Azad University, Najafabad Branch, comes next with a rank in the range of 501–600.

Azarbaijan Shahid Madani University, Iran University of Medical Sciences, University of Kashan, University of Kurdistan, University of Mohaghegh Ardabili, University of Tabriz, and The University of Tehran are in the range of 601–800.

The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2023 include 1,799 universities across 104 countries and regions, making them the largest and most diverse university rankings to date.

The table is based on 13 carefully calibrated performance indicators that measure an institution’s performance across four areas: teaching, research, knowledge transfer, and international outlook.

This year’s ranking analyzed over 121 million citations across more than 15.5 million research publications and included survey responses from 40,000 scholars globally. Overall, we collected over 680,000 data points from more than 2,500 institutions that submitted data.

The University of Oxford tops the ranking for the seventh consecutive year. Harvard University remains in second place, but the University of Cambridge jumps from joint fifth last year to joint third.

A total of 63 universities from Iran have been listed in the Islamic World University Rankings 2022 announced by the Islamic World Science Citation Center (ISC), compared with 51 universities in 2021.

In the 2022 ISC ranking, there were 347 universities from 28 Islamic countries, where Turkey with 90 universities, and Iran with 63 universities had the largest number, IRNA reported.

ISC is the third internationally accredited citation center established in Iran based on a resolution adopted in 2008 by the 4th Meeting of the Islamic Ministers of Higher Education (ICMHESR) in Baku, the capital of the Republic of Azerbaijan, to index, evaluate and publish scientific productions in Islamic countries.

In “ISC world university rankings by subject” includes 4 major criteria of Education, Research, International Activity, and Innovation.

In the ISC 2022 world ranking, there are 2,422 universities from 111 countries and 6 continents, of which the Islamic Republic of Iran has 63 universities.

In the 2021 ranking, 2,300 universities from 107 countries and 6 continents were present, of which 51 universities were from Iran. Meanwhile, 46 universities from Iran had been listed in the ISC 2020 global ranking.

The University of Tehran and the Tehran University of Medical Sciences are in first place (401-450), Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Sharif University of Technology, Iran University of Medical Sciences, and Tarbiat Modares University are in second place (601-700).

The Amir Kabir University of Technology and Mashhad University of Medical Sciences are in third place (701-800). / T.T/

A total of 1,330 tons of honey worth $2.5 million were exported from Iran to 22 countries in 10 months. According to the head of the Agriculture and Food Industries Commission of Iran Chamber of Cooperatives Arsalan Qasemi, a total of 1,330 tons of honey worth $2.5 million were exported from Iran to 22 countries during the first 10 months of the current Iranian year (March 21, 2022-Jan. 20).

The exports stood at 1,800 tons worth $5.6 million in the last Iranian year (March 2021-22), he added, Financial Tribune reported.

China, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Germany, the UK, Canada, Hong Kong, Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Iraq and Lebanon are among the main destinations of Iranian honey.

MNA/

Iranian Oil Minister Javad Oji has said the country’s incomes from the sales of oil, natural gas, gas condensate, and petroleum products in the first 10 months of the current Iranian year (March 21, 2022-January 20, 2023) increased by 40 percent compared to the same period last year.

Addressing an open session of the parliament  Oji said that 70 million barrels of gas condensate were exported in the mentioned time span, Mehr News Agency reported.

According to the official, the goals set in the current year’s national budget bill for the exports of oil and gas will definitely be achieved by the yearend.

He noted that the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) has already sold enough oil and gas and petroleum products to realize the budget goals by 100 percent, however collecting the revenues needs more time.

In remarks in November 2022, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi highlighted the failure of the enemy’s policy of maximum pressure, saying the country’s oil export has reached the pre-sanction levels.

Earlier this week, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) in a report put Iran’s average oil production in 2022 at 2.54 million barrels per day (bpd), 140,000 bpd more than the previous year. Iran’s oil production in 2021 was about 2.4 million bpd.

The value of Iran’s non-oil export to Africa rose 19 percent in the first 10 months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 21, 2022-January 20, 2023), as compared to the same period of time in the past year, the vice president of Iran and Africa Merchants Club Ruhollah Latifi said.

Latifi noted that Iranian traders exported over 2,247,619 tons of commodities worth $1,108,357,000 to African countries in the mentioned 10-month period, IRIB reported.

According to the official, Iran exported commodities to 45 African countries and the exports also increased by nine percent in terms of weight.

Latifi put the total Iran-Africa trade in the said 10 months at 2.330 million tons valued at $1.188 billion, of which the share of Iran’s import was 84,280 tons valued at $79.685 million.

The trade between Iran and Africa increased by 11 percent in terms of weight and 22 percent in terms of value in the said period, Latifi said.

According to Latifi, imports from Africa increased by 70 percent and 79 percent in terms of weight and value, respectively.

The official named South Africa, Mozambique, Ghana, Sudan, Nigeria, and Kenya as the main export destinations and Tanzania, Kenya, South Africa, and Ghana as the major sources of imports for Iran among the African countries in the first 10 months of the present year.

Latifi earlier said that trade between Iran and Africa reached $1.250 billion last year with a 100 percent growth, and considering the current trend of trade with the African continent the figure is expected to reach $1.7 billion by the end of the current year (March 20, 2023).

Head of Iran’s Trade Promotion Organization (TPO) Alireza Peyman-Pak has also said the country is taking the necessary steps to increase annual trade exchanges with African countries to $5 billion by the Iranian calendar year 1404 (begins in March 2025).

Peyman-Pak said the trade with the mentioned countries is expected to reach $2.5 billion by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20, 2023).

Referring to the preparation of the country’s trade development roadmap at the beginning of the work of the 13th administration, the official said: “In this roadmap, major factors including exports and the share of different sectors are specified, and in the case of Africa, the priorities and targets for trade with different countries and the requirements for reaching these targets are determined.”

Peyman-Pak put the share of African countries in Iran’s export basket at $1.2 billion, saying: “Africa’s annual imports amount to about $580 billion, and our share of this figure is still small despite all the efforts. We have managed to export $1.2 billion to this market.”

He further mentioned the capacities of the mentioned continent for the export of technical and engineering services and said: “The total exports of technical and engineering services to Africa is currently $300 billion; But our share last year, despite a slight increase reached only $200 million, which is still small.”

According to the TPO head, in order to increase the level of trade with Africa certain infrastructure including transportation and direct shipping lines, as well as proper legal, commercial, monetary, and banking relations must be provided, and TPO has been recently focusing on providing such requirements to facilitate trade with Africa.

“To solve the transportation problems, four countries have been selected in East, West, South, and North of Africa, to launch air and shipping lines,” he said. /T.T/