TEHRAN, Iran, June 11
Trend:
Iran has attracted around $2.5 billion worth of foreign investment during the last Iranian year (began March 21, 2019), said the head of Iranian & Foreign Joint Venture Investments Association Hossein Salimi, Trend reports citing ILNA.
"As far as foreign investments are concerned, in the current Iranian year, there have been limitations due to COVID-19. This reduced the demands but they didn't drop to zero," said Salimi.
"The statistics of previous months are not available so its not clear how much foreign investments we've lost," he said.
"It's possible that Iran has issued the necessary permits, but the foreign investment didn't go through, or the permit extensions weren't listed in the statistics," he added.
"Iran has issued permits for $700 million worth of foreign investments from April 20 to May 20 in the current Iranian year, but it's not certain if new permits were issued, extended or annulled," Salimi said.
"Iran has a good capacity to attract foreign investment in oil, gas, human resources and mine sector, but most European countries avoid investment due to fear of sanctions," he added.
"At the moment, most investments are made into solar energy. The country has issued permits regarding foreign investments on production of 1,800 megawatt of solar energy. Almost 90 percent of the investments have been used, while the remaining 10 percent encountered a land ownership-related problem," said Salimi.
"European investors including Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands have the most share of investments in this sector," he said.