May 13, 2016
Iran has managed to attract $3.418 billion in direct in-vestment since the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) took effect in January, President Rohani said in a speech Tuesday.
Rohani said that level of investments had been approved over the past four months. But he didn’t cite any specific examples of the investments or say whether the $3.418 billion represented one project or dozens. Nor did he make clear if these were contractual investments or just tentative ones.
He gave the number as he slammed those criticizing the government over the JCPOA. He said the nuclear deal had paved the way for growing economic activity in Iran.
The sum Rohani cited is not huge. But a rate of $1 billion a month is not bad—if it is accurate—for a country just getting back in the world’s graces.
Iran has long been a problem spot for foreign investment. In the period from 1996 to 2004, Iran attracted an average of just $1.1 billion in foreign direct investment annually, according to figures from the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). That is a pittance for an economy the size of Iran’s.
Last year, Rohani indicated he was peeved at the number of firms that only want to sell and only see Iran as a source of buyers. “If foreign companies or countries think they can take control of a market of 80 million people, they are mistaken and we will not allow that,” Rohani said.
Earlier, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenehi spoke disgustedly about foreign companies that only wanted to dump their products on Iran.
The World Bank came out in October with a report showing Iran as one of the worst countries in the world in which to do business.
The World Bank’s report, “Doing Business,” ranked Iran as 130th among the 189 counties surveyed on the ease of doing business.
That was, however, a jump of two slots in the rankings since the previous year’s report.
Still, the overall ranking put Iran in the bottom third of countries as far as its attractiveness to foreign investors. Most of the countries ranked below Iran were African or small island states. The sole major country with a lower ranking than Iran was India, which came in at 142nd.