TEHRAN- Iran attracted over $3.8 billion of foreign investment during the first half of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20-September 21), Finance and Economic Affairs Minister Farhad Dejpasand announced.

The minister said that attracting this amount of foreign investment indicates the proper performance of the Organization for Investment, Economic and Technical Assistance of Iran, IRNA reported.

Emphasizing that attracting investment is definitely better than receiving loan, Dejpasand said, “Foreign investment acts as a window through it technology, employment, and production enter, so the executive bodies should make their most effort to attract foreign investment.”

“The other advantage of foreign investment attraction is that the investor becomes a supporter of our country’s interests in his/her country, and in this way the relations between the two countries will be strengthened”, the official added.

He also mentioned attracting Iranian expatriates’ investment making in Iran, and stressed the necessity for removing the problems in this due and facilitating the processes for those investors.

Dejpasand also said that Finance and Economic Ministry has outlined a plan for facilitating and expediting the attraction of Iranian expatriates’ investment, based on which some incentives and guarantees will be allocated to those investors.

According to the finance minister, materializing the motto of “Surge in Production” requires an investment of 7-10 quadrillion rials (about $166.6-$238 billion), and the attraction of foreign investment can play a significant part in this regard.

The current Iranian calendar year (began on March 20) is named the year of “Surge in Production” by the Leader of Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei.

It should be considered that the trend of strengthening domestic production has been started in Iran a couple of years ago, as the country is determined to nullify the U.S. sanction on its economy through boosting production to reach more and more self-reliance.

The Leader had named the previous year as the year of “Pick up in Production”, something that came true in all economic and industrial sectors through cooperation between the state-run bodies and private sector.

MA/MA