Foreign investment in Iran more than doubled in a year

Iran’s minister of economy and finance says that the country has managed to record more than a double increase in foreign direct investment (FDI) over the past year.

Farhad Dejpassand said on Tuesday that Iran’s FDI had reached to above $3.5 billion in May 2019 from a “worrying rate” of around $1.7 billion a year ago.

Dejpassand said the country was eyeing to meet higher FDA targets at the end of the current Iranian calendar year in March, specially with a scheme to facilitate investments above $250 million.

He said Iran managed to collect around 1,090 trillion rials (more than $8 billion) worth of taxes in the 12-month period ending in March 2019, adding that the figure was around 10 percent higher than the government projections.

Fully prepared to counter sanctions

Dejpassand also said Iran is fully prepared to defuse US economic pressure a day after Washington imposed a new round of sanctions on Tehran.

The minister said that Tehran had a range of options to counter US sanctions although he would not elaborate on the specifics.

“In current circumstances we have a full armory to counter enemy’s efforts but unfortunately we can’t announce the adopted measures in public,” said Dejpassand while speaking to a group of journalists in Tehran.

The Iranian minister said US sanctions on Iran’s oil industry had caused the country to accelerate its efforts and policies aimed at cutting to zero the dependency of its operating budget to oil incomes.

“We have adopted measures in terms of budget and income to minimize the tension being felt by the country,” said Dejpassand.

“We have adopted solutions to resort to clean and robust form of income during the time of decreased oil revenues so that we can realize the old dream of oil-independent budget,” he added.