Attracting foreign investment by developing relations with neighboring countries

According to Energy Press, Ali Fakhri, head of Iran’s Investment and Economic and Technical Assistance Organization, explained the duties of this organization regarding the policy and guidance of foreign capital, communication with international development banks and foreign financing and management of economic relations with the target countries. Currently, we are not directly responsible for domestic investment, but naturally, when we define investment opportunities, especially with the Rial Production and Infrastructure Financing Law, the definition of investment opportunities has actually been added to our work area, and when this definition of opportunities happens Foreign investors benefit from it as well as domestic investors.

The Deputy Minister of Economy also explained about the latest statistics of attracting foreign investment: In the past, the trend that existed was that every license that was issued was announced as the performance of the investment organization, but since the beginning of the Shahid Raisi government, we made an agreement with the government. It was to announce as statistics only the statistics related to the investments that have a valid license, that is, either a part of the capital has entered or is about to enter.

He continued: With these conditions in calculating the statistics, the total amount of approvals that the Organization and the Foreign Investment Board had was close to 17 billion dollars, but what we announced as statistics in the government of Shahid Raisi was an amount of more than 11 billion dollars, so that is the difference. It was related to licenses whose licenses were revoked, which means they were not actually entered, which we removed from the statistics.

In response, he asked whether Iran’s joining Shanghai and BRICS had an effect on increasing investment in the country. He emphasized: In the government of Shahid Raisi, the most important investor countries in Iran happen to be the countries that are members of the Shanghai Pact, and the second strategy that this government followed was the development of relations with its neighbors.

Fekri reminded: neighboring countries were mainly at the top of foreign investors; In 1402, Russia was the first, and the next 3 countries are China, Turkey, and the UAE, and of course Iranians living abroad are considered to be the most important foreign investors.

The head of the investment organization emphasized that economic diplomacy paves the way for investment and continued: with the efforts of both the martyred president and especially the martyred foreign minister, Mr. Dr. Amir Abdollahian, membership in Shanghai was one of the first achievements that were made in the form of It was specific and specialized for the investment organization, holding a conference and conference to encourage the investment of the member countries of this organization in Tehran, and this was one of the first events that we held in Tehran as the main member of Shanghai, and we saw in practice that the investments made were mainly The countries are members of these institutions, and we were able to practically help the process of capital entry into the country through trust building that happens through membership in these institutions.

Fekri also said about the impact of this investment on the people’s table: this investment has shown its effect, that is, when we say that oil production increased in these years, part of it was due to these investments that happened or the investments that were made in The mining sector has been significant both in terms of employment and in terms of the income it has created for the country.

He added: The reality is that what we refer to as investment, compared to a large economy called the economy of the Islamic Republic of Iran, has not yet reached its main position, and we are still far from the point where we can say that foreign investment is a factor. It has become the main for the development and progress of the country, we still have many capacities in the country that we hope to be able to activate these capacities as soon as possible so that the investment figure reaches a point that actually has a tangible effect on the people’s table.

The Deputy Minister of Economy stated about the measures taken to gain the confidence of investors in the 13th government: During this period, among the countries that we mentioned as neighboring countries, this confidence building was done to a considerable extent, the foreign trips that were carried out And the result of the commitment that different countries saw from the statements and commitments of the Islamic Republic was that they moved towards economic cooperation with Iran, and of course, investment also happened.

He emphasized: The investment that China or Russia had in Iran before the beginning of the Shahid Raisi government cannot be compared with the investment after that, which is partly done in the framework of cooperation in organizations such as Shanghai or BRICS, but the other part is related to bilateral relations. It returns between countries and trust building.

Attracting foreign investment by developing relations with neighboring countries

Fekri reminded: In this 3-year period, the level of trust building between the Islamic Republic in various fields of relations with these and neighboring countries was a completely acceptable level. Many issues that existed between us and neighboring countries for a long time were resolved during this period. When a political event happens, you also see its economic effect with a time interval; Now we only discussed investment, but in the field of financing, we also had a development bank such as the Islamic Development Bank, whose relations with this bank were almost blocked, but with positive events in Iran’s relations with Islamic countries such as Saudi Arabia or other Islamic countries such as Iraq, today our relations with the Islamic Development Bank have become completely normal from the foreign side.