The French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius announced yesterday that he had been invited by his counterpart to Tehran and would soon be visiting there. But he did not announce any date for his visit. In the meantime while Fabius was talking the Germans were making their travel arrangements. The German Economy Minister has moved fast and has already arranged to take a large trade delegation to Tehran in 4 days time on 19th July (Tehran and Isfahan).
Both France and Germany were major trading partners for Iran before the sanctions and are looking to take a serious chunk of the frozen moneys now being released (about €800 million every month) and which Iran will most likely use to get equipment and components it has long been starved of. There is likely to be a rush of trade delegations and Germany and France are sure to be in the front. However the three countries which have had most trade with Iran during the sanction years have been Russia, China and India and they will also be expecting to be preferred suppliers for whatever they can offer. In any event the world economy will see an increase of trade by about €10 billion per year and increasing as Iran’s oil revenues pick up.
Fabius noted that French firms were “very well thought of” in Iran but denied the nuclear deal was struck with an eye on business. “Trade is very important. It fosters growth. It’s important for the Iranians, it’s important for us,” he said.
“But when the president of the Republic (Francois Hollande) and I took the strategic decision (to agree to a deal) … we did not take it for commercial reasons, but for strategic reasons because we wanted to avoid nuclear proliferation,” stressed the minister.
France used to have a strong presence in Iran before the sanctions went into effect, with Peugeot and Renault being major players in the Iranian auto industry and energy giant Total heavily involved in the oil sector. But two-way trade has fallen from four billion euros ($4.4 billion) in 2004 to just 500 million euros in 2013, according to French statistics.
Germany sees a big rise in trade with Iran, preparing the first high-profile foreign delegation for visit to Tehran this week since the conclusion of nuclear talks on Tuesday.
Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel will arrive at the head of a large political and trade delegation on Sunday for a two-day visit which will also take him to the central Iranian city of Isfahan.
The 60-strong delegation will include representatives of big German industrial companies such as Linde and Siemens, Amir-Hossein Zamaninia, Iran’s deputy oil minister for commerce and international affairs, said.
Gabriel, who is also Germany’s vice chancellor, will meet with President Hassan Rouhani, Minister of Petroleum Bijan Zangeneh as well as Iranian ministers of trade and energy and the central bank governor.
“We expect to see a big increase in trade, especially in German sales of capital goods,” the Deutsche Welle website quoted Michael Tockuss, chief executive at the German-Iranian Chamber of Commerce, as saying.
According to the German Foreign Ministry, bilateral trade grew by 27% to 2.7 billion euros ($3 billion) in 2014 because of the sanctions relief. With the conclusion of nuclear talks on Tuesday, conservative estimates foresee bilateral trade expanding to 6 or 7 billion euros in 2016 assuming sanctions are dropped quickly, DW said.
The k2p blog 