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Foreign investment in Iran face difficulty due to FATF related bills

Business Materials 17 February 2021 15:20 (UTC +04:00)
Foreign investment in Iran face difficulty due to FATF related bills

BAKU, Azerbaijan, Feb.17

Trend:

Financial Action Task Force (FATF) related issues and money transfer are obstacles that affect foreign investment in Iran, said the head of Iranian & Foreign Joint Venture Investments Association.

"The issue of FATF-related bills and banking transactions is a problem to attract foreign investment since foreign companies could not transfer money from or to Iran so instead they would choose to invest in other countries due to these difficulties," said Hossein Salimi, Trend reports citing ILNA.

"Economic and political stability and implementation of international regulations are important for attracting foreign investment. Sanctions and issues related to Financial Action Task Force (FATF) are the biggest obstacles to attract foreign investors. The role of foreign investment is very important in macroeconomics that is not only investing capital but international communication of foreign companies as well that could help Iran produce and export to neighbor companies," he said.

He went on to say without foreign investment, Iran could not obtain the 8 percent leap in economic growth that is predicted in the country's plan, the investment would be in the interest of Iran's economy and foreign side and would accelerate increase economic growth.

"Iran has good potentials to attract foreign investment, the country has ranked first in gas and mineral resources and second in oil resources, and considering young educated forces but the rate of foreign investment is not good mainly due to sanction," he said.

Iran has the capacity to annually attract $100 billion foreign investment. Petrochemical and oil projects could attract up to $30 billion investment, old refineries could be repaired by foreign investment, the French company, TOTAL has entered in these fields several years ago but it abandoned the work due to sanctions.

Iran can only attract between $3 to $4 billion foreign investments per year, which fulfills 5 percent of the country's needs. Sanctions indicate anyone that has an investment in the US, can not simultaneously invest in Iran, this is an obstacle for mega-companies such as TOTAL.

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