Baku, Azerbaijan, May 26
By Emil Ilgar – Trend:
Iranians have invested $2 trillion abroad and there is no suitable ground for returning those funds back to the country, Ferial Mostofi, the head of the investment panel at the Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture (ICCIMA), told Fars May 26.
There is no any accurate and updated information about Iranians’ wealth abroad, but last year ISNA quoted Zahra Karimi, the advisor to labour and social welfare minister, as saying that Iranian citizens’ net wealth abroad is $1 trillion.
Mostofi says that during last fiscal year, Iranian government approved $11.8 billion foreign investment inflow, but only $1.5 billion was realized.
She added that the main challenge in attracting the foreign investments or encouraging Iranians to return their funds into the country is the lack of suitable economic grounds.
“Firstly, the foreign exchange rates against Iranian rial must be kept unchanged. Secondly, about 80 percent of Iran’s economy belongs to official or semi-official companies and private sector is not able to compete with them,” she added.
Mostofi said there is a weak relation between Iranian banks and investors as well.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani announced earlier that if $240 billion is annually invested in the economy, including $20 billion of foreign funds that are to be attracted, creation of 950,000 new jobs per year is possible.
Iran needs a permanent 8-percent GDP growth to create one million new jobs annually.
Annually one million young people reach working age, but the country’s unemployment rate was very high during the last decade.
According to the World Bank, Iranian economy bounced back sharply in 2016 at an estimated 6.4 percent, compared to the previous year. However, the unemployment rate returned to a three-year high of 12.7 percent (or 3.3 million unemployed) in the second quarter of 2016 despite the high growth rate in this period.