TEHRAN (Iran News) – Head of Mine and Industry Commission of Iran Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mine and Agriculture (ICCIMA) believes Iran has not been successful in attracting investment in its mining sector and even some of Iranians are busy with investing in the mining sector of Turkey and Australia.
Bahram Shakouri said that unfortunately Iran does not usually have joint cooperation with other countries in the mining sector, adding that in some periods that there were no U.S. sanctions, Iran had some ties with foreign companies in some mines in the country but they were also forced to leave the country because of the sanctions.
On the condition of cooperation in the mining sector with other countries, he said that because of the problems resulted by the sanctions, Iran’s major economic exchanges in all sectors have been with the neighboring states like Iraq as well as China. He added that figures and statistics are announced two years later but the unofficial statistics show that Iran’s annual non-oil exports stand at around $50b as the mineral products account for 30 percent of Iran’s total exports.
Shakouri went on to say that some of Iranian here and there have invested in other countries like Turkey and even Australia and they have bought mines, otherwise there has been no broad mining relations with other countries, and if it had happened, the country could not have faced problems in the sanctions era.
Touching upon the reason for lack of joint investment in the mining sector, he said that investment is done based on some indexes like business climate or domestic regulations which are effective in joint investment and when we lack such indexes, there will be no attraction for foreign investors to invest in the country.
He admitted that sanctions have doubled the woes and most of companies which are active in different European countries or other continents have a close and interwoven ties with the U.S. and it is natural to ignore investment in Iran because of their ties with the U.S.
On the possibility of using the resources of the neighboring states, Shakouri said that we can use the resources of the neighboring states, and for example resources of Sangan in Afghanistan is one of them whose mining route is safer for Iran but due to the insecurity and violence in Afghanistan, this cooperation can be affected and private sector has no appetite to invest in places which are involved in war and insecurity.
He said foreign companies are eager to invest in Iran and even they express this interest but they cannot start investment practically due to the sanctions otherwise they would flood into the country because some of them have experience of cooperation with Iran in the past.
