Spanish Finance for Iran Petrochem Industry
EghtesadOnline: Spain’s ambassador to Iran announced that his nation’s banks are ready to finance the petrochemical industry, which facilitates Iran’s interaction with European companies.
“Spanish banks have expressed readiness to guarantee deals in the petrochemical industry of Iran and in the near future, finance and business ties through Spanish lenders and European companies will become possible,” IRNA quoted Eduardo Lopez Busquets as saying to Deputy Oil Minister Marzieh Shahdaei.
The officials were meeting at the 22nd edition of the trade show known as the Iran Oil Show, which opened in Tehran on Saturday and closes on Tuesday.
According to Busquets, Spain is looking to create a framework to accelerate the process of establishing a link between Spanish and Iranian firms to develop collaborations in “finance, investment and exports”.
According to Financial Tribune, the ambassador noted that it is very important to clear hurdles and build a structure for interaction, emphasizing that the Spanish side is eager to enter into a variety of agreements and deals.
The major oil and gas exhibition is attended by more than 4,000 local and international companies. Since many of the companies were holdings or a group of various firms, more than 1,000 stalls represented about 2,500 local firms while 811 foreign stalls were set up by 1,500 firms from 37 countries.
However, the absence of heavyweights such as BP and Total came as a stark contrast to last year’s exhibit when oil giants visited Iran fresh from sanctions relief with high hopes of investment and collaboration.
Shahdaei, who is also the managing director of state-run National Petrochemical Company of Iran, pointed to the fact that a wide variety of projects are available for investment in Iran.
“If the government of Spain provides us with comprehensive information regarding companies that want to invest in Iran, we can realize expansive cooperation between Iranian and Spanish firms,” she said.
Spain, China, Germany, France, Italy, Turkey, Russia, Japan, the Netherlands, Austria, South Korea and Australia had pavilions at the exhibition, while active firms in the oil sector had stalls or were represented by their expert teams. German firms were assigned the biggest pavilion while China had the largest number of firms in the event. Italy, the Netherlands, France and UK followed China.
In terms of scope and numbers, Iran Oil Show is the top event in the Middle East and the fifth in the world.