Trump tied American jobs to endless wars in the Middle East. Biden should link them to renewed diplomacy.
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Trump tied American jobs to endless wars in the Middle East. Biden should link them to renewed diplomacy.
◢ This month, the European Commission approved an initial tranche of EUR 18 million in development funding from an larger package of EUR 50 million that has been allocated to support projects in Iran. This represents a highly significant, “first-of-its-kind,” intervention to support Europe-Iran trade and investment. However, the funding is not primarily intended as an attempt to mitigate the effect of returning U.S. secondary sanctions. As made clear in the “action document” which details how the development funding will be distributed, the European Commission has allocated the funding “in line with the European Consensus on Development” to provide “targeted support in the areas of Prosperity, Planet and People.”
◢ Renewable energy has been one of the brightest sectors in the Iranian economy, achieving 70 percent growth in the last Iranian year according to official data. But this encouraging growth is now in doubt. The Trump administration’s unilateral withdrawal from the JCPOA nuclear deal has brought economic uncertainty for local investors and made foreign direct investment increasingly difficult. While there are steps the government can take to reassure local and foreign investors, as with other sectors of Iran’s economy, the withdrawal of European investors from Iran’s solar industry may mean that “Chinese money turns out to be the only option.”
◢ A Swedish investment company is “on course” to make a landmark investment in Moheb, the leading manufacturer of plastic and laminate tubes in Iran and the Middle East.
◢ Serkland will take an approximately 40 percent stake in Moheb with its investment, and will receive two of five board seats.
◢ Two new investments by a Dutch-registered company have pushed Digikala and Café Bazaar to historic new valuations. Iran's e-commerce leader and largest app store are no longer the visionary startups of a few years ago, but rather ambitious and established enterprises.
◢ The investments were completed discretely, but point back to Sarava, which has reportedly raised new capital in Europe. The venture capital firm is poised to further expand its dominance in Iran's tech sector.
◢ Mineral Commodities Limited, a listed Australian junior mining company, has entered the Iranian market. MRC has signed agreements that give it rights to majority stakes in two mining projects producing gold and copper in the northwest of Iran.
◢ The company has reviewed thirty projects so far, and has earmarked a USD 2.4 million dollars for further exploration in 2018.
◢ A new survey by Bourse & Bazaar and IranPoll finds that business leaders believe Trump's rhetoric has slowed the pace of trade and investment by multinational companies in Iran.
◢ However, the results come at a time when the underlying commercial momentum seems strong. This suggests that Trump's words are having an impact not on those most directly working with Iran, but on the stakeholders on whom they rely.
New survey conducted by IranPoll in partnership with Bourse & Bazaar looks at Iranian attitudes towards economic reform and foreign investment with new detail. Iranians demonstrate high degree of openness to foreign investment and the economic reforms necessary to facilitate that investment. But they want multinational companies to do more to localize their offerings effectively.
◢ The recent extension of Iran's Feed-in-Tariffs scheme has renewable energy investors pushing to close deals in the next 12 months to take advantage of the strong government incentive packages.
◢ But FiTs won't last forever, and Iranian energy authorities are working to improve the general mechanisms that support foreign investment in Iran's renewable sector, including the use of Iran's first competitive bidding tenders for renewable energy projects.
◢ The global energy industry continues to find greater value in efficiency and clean technology, with a rapidly growing reliance on renewable energy. But Iran lags behind.
◢ Now that Iran prepares to once again open doors to the international business community, the time is right for renewables to have a greater role in the country’s energy mix.
