The director general of Iran’s Organization for Investment, Economic and Technical Assistance (OIETAI) said on Tuesday that exempting Iranians living abroad from military service is part of the country’s policy to attract more diaspora investors.
“There are many Iranian investors living abroad. We are using special methods to attract their investments,” Mehdi Heydari said, according to Press TV.
Haidari said that no other country offers such guarantees to investors based abroad, adding that the government aims to ensure Iranians living abroad that the projects in which they invest are profitable and generate profits in foreign currency.
He said the new plan would primarily target Iranians based in the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, China and India.
Iran has sought to attract more foreign investors to its projects in recent years, even though foreign sanctions have restricted access to major international investors and financial institutions.
Discrete investors are the main focus of these plans, with the government guaranteeing that they can withdraw their capital and profits at any time during the life of the project.
Last month, Iran’s central bank announced a series of new measures to encourage foreign investment, including a decision to allow investors to import gold into the country to finance economic projects.
Iran attracted more than $8 billion in foreign direct investment in the seven months to February, according to government figures released earlier this year.
Foreign investment in the market nearly doubled in the year to the end of July, reaching nearly $200 million, according to recent data from the Iranian Stock Market Authority.
MNA