About $8.5 billion in foreign direct investment have been made in Iran’s industrial sectors so far since Hassan Rouhani took office as Iran's president in August 2013, the minister of industries, mining and trade said.
“This total sum has been invested in 170 industrial and mining projects. So far, 80 of these projects have been inaugurated,” Mohammad Reza Nematzadeh was also quoted by IRNA as saying in a meeting with Iran’s Ambassador to Turkey Mohammad Ebrahim Taherianfard, in Ankara late-Tuesday.
"European countries, Commonwealth of Independent States and Arab countries are among those that have invested in Iran over the past couple of years."
According to Nematzadeh, some $5.5 billion of FDIs were made over the past year after Iran’s historic nuclear deal with world powers, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA, went into effect in January 2016.
The deal saw the scope of Iran’s nuclear program limited in exchange for the lifting of sanctions imposed on Iran’s economy for over a decade.
“Foreign investment in Iran had come to a halt [before the nuclear deal was signed]. We are trying to persuade foreign parties to invest in Iran,” Nematzadeh added.
According to the head of Iranian Mines and Mining Industries Development and Renovation, Mehdi Karbasian, Iran's mining sector alone needs close to $50 billion in foreign investment
“About $30 billion of the figure will need to be invested in the steel industry and its downstream sectors, and the rest in copper, aluminum and other industries," Karbasian was quoted as saying last month.
Nematzadeh arrived in the Turkish capital on Tuesday at the head of a delegation to discuss ways of boosting trade ties with the neighboring country.
He met Turkish Minister of Economy Nihat Zeybekci on Wednesday to discuss the preferential trade agreement in place between the two countries, as well as ways of boosting banking relations.
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