TEHRAN – China plans investment of $400 billion in Iran, Iranian media hadreported citing sources in governments of Iran and China.
Iran’s foreign minister Mohammad Zarif recently met his Chinese counterpartWang Li at the end of August to present a road map for the China-Irancomprehensive strategic partnership that was signed in 2016.
The central part of the new deal is that China will invest $280 billiondeveloping Iran’s oil, gas and petrochemicals sectors. This amount may bedistributed into the first five-year period of the deal but theunderstanding is that further amounts will be available in every subsequentfive-year period, subject to both parties’ agreement.
There will be another $120 billion investment in upgrading Iran’s transportand manufacturing infrastructure, which again can be front-loaded into thefirst five-year period and added to in each subsequent period should bothparties agree.
The actual figure is still higher, according to the report, with excessbarrels being kept in floating storage in and around China; without havinggone through customs they do not show up on customs data, but areeffectively part of China’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
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The updated agreement echoes many of the points contained in previousChina-Iran accords, and already in the public domain. However, many of thekey specifics of this new understanding will not be released to the publicstated a report.
Closer cooperation between China and Iran, especially on economic matters,is inevitable given they are both now targets of rising US antagonism.
