Multinationals ready to jump into Iran market after sanctions officially lifted

With global growth moribund, multinational firms have been waiting with bated breath for the lifting of international sanctions against Iran for access to a country in desperate need to modernise.

After nearly a decade of limited access to the outside world, many sectors of the Iranian economy need new equipment including the oil and gas industry, railways, and airlines. Plus there are 80 million Iranian consumers, many of them keen to buy cars and other goods.

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Access is expected to begin opening up, now that the International Atomic Energy Agency has issued a report concluding that Iran has fulfilled its obligations under a nuclear deal reached last year with world powers.

Since that deal was reached in July, delegations of officials and business executives from Germany, France and Italy have headed to Iran to prepare the ground to win back some of the market share lost to emerging nations like China and Turkey, or countries like Russia and Japan which kept friendly nations with Tehran.

Germany’s BGA foreign trade federation believes that country will have a difficult time reclaiming its former status as Iran’s largest trade partner as Chinese firms have swooped in during sanctions.