November 18, 2016
Norway’s Foreign Ministry has announced it has opened a $1 billion credit line to help Norwegian companies export to Iran.
But it said nothing about promoting investment by Norwegians in Iran. It is investment that Iran most wants to attract since the lifting of sanctions. But most of what it is hearing from Europeans is proposals for sales of European goods to Iran.
European businessmen believe that, after four years of sanctions, Iran is a huge market with vast unsatisfied demand for foreign goods. But the aura of investing in Iran is less attractive, partly because Iran is widely viewed as a corrupt state with mind-numbing bureaucracy, but also because the EU economy is not doing well and foreign investment is not a front-burner topic for many firms.
