Iran to revive economic coop. with Britain

“During the period of sanctions, Britain exerted the most pressure on our companies and business corporations. The fact is that our industries today take the greatest caution when purchasing British machinery and technology because they feel in case of a political problem in the future, this section of trade will be dealt an unfairly considerable damage,” said head of Iran’s Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture Mohsen Jalalpour in a Monday meeting with Britain’s Treasury minister Damian Hinds in Tehran.

Jalalpour added that Britain must make great efforts so that this sceptical mindset of Iranian businessmen would change.

“At the moment, oil and energy are not the top priority of Iran’s economy; rather, those active in the private sector have many opportunities to expand business in various fields such as tourism, Knowledge-based companies, pharmaceuticals, life sciences companies and the like,” the Iranian official said.

Jalalpour further underscored the safe and promising investment environment in Iran, saying the country is ready to expand cooperation with British companies in various fields of energy, petrochemical, transportation, environment, wastewater, desalination, pharmaceutical, technology, nanotechnology, ICT, and knowledge-based economy.

Damian Hinds, for his part, stressed that the revival of the two countries’ relations is one of the British government's priorities, saying despite sanctions, holding such meetings will be highly effective and constructive for the future of bilateral relations.

“Iran and Britain can be good business partners; we would not consider Iran as a source providing us benefits unilaterally; rather our main objective for this visit is to find potential grounds for bilateral cooperation so that we can send a big trade delegation to Iran by the end of 2015,” Hinds said.

On his one-day visit to Tehran, Hinds was accompanied by senior officials from UK Trade and Investment organization, the British Bankers' Association, the Institute of Directors and The Confederation of British Industry.