Iran authorizes $2B of foreign investment for industry, mining

The Iranian administration has authorized direct foreign investments worth $2 billion for 29 industrial and mining projects following the implementation of nuclear deal in January, Ali Yazdani, Iran’s deputy industry minister, said, IRNA news agency reported Oct. 31.

He further said that joint investment with competitive production, exporting at least 30 percent of the output, technology transfer and investment in R&D units for development of the products are among the conditions required for authorizing the foreign investment.

Yazdani further said the Iranian incumbent administration has approved foreign investments worth $4.1 billion for more than 120 projects in mining and industry sector since August 2013, when President Hassan Rouhani took office.

The authorized projects include various sectors such as car, electric motorcycles, subway, motor oil, agricultural machinery factories, steel, aluminium, copper and energy, Yazdani said.

The projects are funded by companies from Italy, Austria, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Ukraine, Ireland, South Korea, Japan, China, India, Malaysia, the UAE, Afghanistan and Iraq, he added.

Earlier Hossein Salimi, a member of the Iranian Committee of International Chamber of Commerce, forecast that Iran is expected to receive some $8 billion worth of direct foreign investment by March 2017.

According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Iran’s annual inward FDI (foreign direct investment) was $2.408 billion on average during 2005-2007, while this figure for 2011-2014 was $3.523 billion.

Iran’s total inward FDI from 1995 to 2011 was a little over $33 billion, according to the UNCTAD.