Page 26 - IRANRptAug21

UNCTAD data ‘shows Iran’s FDI inflow fell 11% in 2020’
‘Post Trump’ Iran will not be free for all foreign investors, oil minister warns
Iran saw a foreign direct investment (FDI) decline of around 11% y/y in 2020, according to United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) data cited on June 23 by Tehran’s Financial Tribune. Information in UNCTAD’s World Investment Report 2021 reportedly showed the UN agency assessing Iran’s FDI inflow at $1.34bn compared to $1.508bn in 2019.
Iran saw FDI inflows of $3.37bn and $5.01bn in 2016 and 2017 after the signing of the landmark 2015 nuclear deal. However, foreign investors turned away from Iran after former US president Donald Trump pulled Washington out of the deal in May 2018 and warned such investors that they could face secondary sanctions if they continued to do business with the Islamic Republic. The FDI inflow fell to $2.37bn in 2018, UNCTAD said.
The UN body also estimated Iran's direct investment in other countries at $78mn in coronavirus-afflicted 2020, 8% lower than the $85mn seen the year before.
Iran has lately been posting data showing it is emerging from a recession that lasted almost three years, with the introduction of Trump’s swingeing sanctions the main factor in the economic decline.
‘Post-Trump’ Iran will not be a free-for-all when it comes to foreign investment, the country’s oil minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh has warned.
Foreign companies looking to re-enter the country would be required to work under conditions different to those they secured prior to leaving Iran after the re-introduction of heavy US sanctions against Tehran by US President Donald Trump from 2018, Tasnim news agency reported Zanganeh as saying on January 11. He spoke with hopes rising that US President-elect Joe Biden, set to take office on January 20, will find an arrangement with Tehran that allows him to lift the Trump sanctions.
Prior to the Trump sanctions crackdown, Iran made it easier for foreign companies—including French energy major Total and China’s China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC)—to take control of foreign investment projects; however after the Trump sanctions caused foreign investors to flee the country, local companies found themselves alone, struggling to fill the vacuum.
“If foreign companies come [to Iran], we will cooperate with them, but it doesn’t mean that we will abandon what we have achieved [alone during the Trump
26 IRAN Country Report August 2021 www.intellinews.com