The Chinese turn away from investing in Iran

According to Sharq newspaper

The Chinese turn away from investing in Iran is clearly evident in foreign investment statistics. According to the announcement of the Organization of Investment and Economic and Technical Assistance, the Chinese had invested about 227 million dollars in Iran in the last two years, which has now decreased to about 185 million dollars. This is happening while Iran and China have signed a 25-year cooperation document and the trustees said that based on this document, China should invest 400 billion dollars in infrastructure in Iran. This is happening while the experts previously considered the 400 billion dollar investment in Iran’s infrastructure to be insignificant and considered the country’s infrastructure need for capital to be a larger number than this figure. Previously, Mohammad Hossein Roshanak, the head of the trade commission of Khorasan Razavi Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture, told Ilna that “400 billion dollars is not a big number for either Iran or China.” Didn’t Iran have 800 billion dollars in foreign exchange income during the eight-year period of the ninth and tenth governments, and how was this amount spent in the country in eight years?” He considered 400 billion dollars to be an insignificant figure for investing in Iran’s infrastructure and said: the investment capacity for various sectors, especially Iran’s transportation infrastructure, is many times more than 400 billion dollars, which critics call its realization unbelievable. In addition to the fact that the cooperation document between Iran and China is 25 years old, 400 billion dollars during 25 years is a small number. Just to secure and modernize the country’s air transport, more investment is needed, not to mention industry, agriculture and other economic infrastructure. However, not only did China not bring 400 billion dollars of capital to Iran despite the 25-year cooperation document, but now the amount of Chinese investment in Iran is very small. Deputy Minister of Economy: We are not satisfied with the Chinese. China only brought 185 million dollars of capital to Iran. Ali Fekri, Deputy Minister of Economy, explained to “Sharq” that since the beginning of the 13th government, the Chinese have invested in 25 projects worth 185 million dollars. He, who appeared in a press conference yesterday, explained to “Sharq” that “Russians are the biggest investors in Iran, and about half of the foreign investment made in Iran belongs to Russians, and the value of this investment is 2.7 billion dollars, which This amount of capital has been imported into the country for the development of oil fields in Ilam. Fekri also emphasized: “One of the most important actions of the government during this period has been the reform of the statistical system, and after this, only the statistics of attracted funds that led to the implementation of the project will be entered into the statistical system, and we are not going to announce only the attraction of funds on paper.” . Expressing the importance of including correct investment statistics in economic decisions, he said that in the previous government, Total France never entered Iran and the discussion of the entry of the French brand was only limited to words and conversations, but in the media they announced the entry of Total to Iran. The head of the Investment and Economic and Technical Assistance Organization stated that from now on we will announce the reality of attracting funds and said: “We no longer include what is considered as the willingness to invest in Iran and the declaration of readiness to invest in Iran in the statistical system and currently only Valid investments are announced. According to Fekri, valid investments means that no more than six months have passed since obtaining the license and the investor has invested part of the capital in the project. According to the explanations of the Deputy Minister of Economy, from the beginning of the 13th government until the end of December this year, 10.2 billion dollars of investment have been approved, of which 5.95 billion dollars are valid investments and the capital has entered the country. The head of the Investment and Economic and Technical Assistance Organization emphasized that in the last one year and three months, after Russia, the UAE was the second country, Turkey was the third country, China was the fourth country, and Afghanistan was the fifth country investing in Iran. Fekri emphasized: “According to the conditions of the country, this amount of investments entered the country through exchanges”. Criticizing the amount of Chinese investment in Iran, he said: “China has invested about 185 million dollars in Iran during the mentioned period, which we are not satisfied with due to the amount of meetings and negotiations, and the Chinese have entered as small and medium investors and neighboring countries. Investments have been made in Iran, most of which have been in the sectors of transportation and transit terminals. Fekri said about the UAE’s investment in Iran over the past year and three months: “Most of the investors from the UAE are not actually Emiratis and are from other countries, and the majority of these investments were in the industry and mining sector.” China’s vast investments in the region, the Chinese turn away from investing in Iran, have had various interpretations and analyzes in the Iranian media, the most important of which is related to Iran’s sanctions debates, but at the same time, China is with the Taliban as a government that is not recognized by many countries in the world. signed an oil contract worth about 150 million dollars and promised that the value of this investment will reach 540 million dollars in the next three years.

According to the Deutsche Welle report, although Beijing has not recognized the Taliban government, it has signed a large contract with the Taliban to extract oil from the Amu Darya oil field. The officials of the Taliban government revealed this big contract on Thursday, January 15. Shahabuddin Delawar, Acting Minister of Mines of the Taliban and the representative of the Chinese company CPEIC (Central Asia Oil and Gas Company in Xinjiang) signed this contract in the presence of Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Deputy Prime Minister of the Taliban and Wang Yu, the Chinese Ambassador in Kabul. This is the first major contract signed by the Taliban since coming to power in August last year. The validity period of this contract is 25 years and according to this contract, oil will be extracted from the area of 4,500 square kilometers of “Amu Darya” oil field. This oil field is located in three northern provinces in Afghanistan, which are Sarpul, Jawzjan and Faryab. According to Taliban officials, it is predicted that extraction from this area will increase from the initial amount of 200 tons per day to 1000 tons and then up to 20 thousand tons of oil. The investment amount of the Chinese company in this project will be 150 million dollars in one year and 540 million dollars in the next three years. Taliban officials have said that they will be 20% partners in this contract and this share can increase up to 75%. Of course, apart from this, China has now announced that it intends to conclude an investment agreement worth 10 billion dollars in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. China’s Gozobay Investment Group has proposed to invest 10 billion dollars in the infrastructure areas of the Kurdistan region of Iraq. CIUB Institute, which operates in the field of construction industry, has informed about the proposal of a Chinese investment group to the authorities of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq for a huge investment in this region. This institution has quoted Mohammad Shokri, the head of Kurdistan Regional Investment Committee, that this amount of investment has been proposed for the development of infrastructure such as the creation of a railway network, power plant, road construction and dam construction. Of course, the amount of Chinese investment in Iraq is also significant, and the Chinese have invested more than 10.5 billion dollars in Iraq’s infrastructure in 2020 alone. After Russia and Pakistan, Iraq is the third country to attract Chinese capital in the form of China’s “One Belt – One Road” initiative. In recent years, Iraq is slowly becoming one of the main bases of Chinese investment in the West Asian region. The website of the Israeli newspaper “Jerusalem Post” published a report entitled: “How Iraq became the main link of China’s One Belt and One Road Strategy”, the strategy of the Chinese government to penetrate through investment into Iraq as one of the main sources of sustainable energy supply for this The giant continues to examine the growing global economy. China also recently signed a 60 billion dollar contract to invest in Qatar’s gas, and has recently signed large contracts with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.