ZCZC
BCN-44
GERMAN-EXPORT-IRAN-TRADE
German exports to Iran fall 18 pct after U.S. sanctions re-imposition:
DIHK expert
BERLIN. Sept. 27, 2018 (BSS/Xinhua) – German exports to Iran are already
suffering from the re-imposition of U.S. sanctions against the country,
recent trade data obtained by Xinhua on Wednesday from the German Association
of the Chambers of Industry and Commerce (DIHK) shows.
Speaking to Xinhua, DIHK trade expert Volker Treier said that German
exports to Iran had fallen by 18 percent since the announcement of the
punitive economic measures by the United States. Treier noted that many of
the once over 100 German companies with offices in Iran closed these again.
The first concrete evidence of resulting harm to German-Iranian bilateral
trade was thus provided by the DIHK less than two months after U.S. sanctions
were enacted in August.
Aside from barring domestic Iranian companies from acquiring dollars, even
foreign financial institutes which have subsidiaries in the U.S. face
reprisals unless they refuse to become involved in any transactions with
counterparties from Iran. Most European banks have consequently begun winding
down their operations in Iran for fear of losing access U.S. capital markets
as a punishment, depriving German exporters of liquidity needed to conduct
business with the country.
Treier predicted on Wednesday that a lack of available payments systems
would continue to pose the “greatest obstacle” to German trade with Iran in
the foreseeable future. “Even companies that are not directly affected by
U.S. sanctions, for example those in the medical and health care sector, or
those without U.S. business, currently cannot find a bank that process their
Iranian transactions,” he said.
Dagmar von Bohnstein, German business delegate in Iran, has recently
emphasized that domestic companies in Iran are in urgent need of political
solutions which enable them bypassing U.S. capital markets. Responding to
such calls, all signatories of the original nuclear deal, except for the
United States, announced on Monday that they would take steps to establish a
new “Special Purpose Vehicle” towards that end.
The EU has mulled diverse legislative initiatives, including the expansion
of the state-owned European Investment Bank (EIB)’s activities in Iran, to
shield European companies from U.S. sanctions and deter them from fleeing the
country. While the DIHK welcomed the latest developments with view to the
multilateral SPV, it lamented delays in the elaboration of the proposal and
cautioned that an improvement of the commercial situation would hence only be
felt in the mid- to long-term.
The DIHK estimates that the EU exported goods worth more than 6 billion
euros (7 billion U.S. dollars) to Iran in the first half of 2018 and imported
goods worth 4.5 billion euros during the same period. A second raft of even
stricter U.S. sanctions against Iran is scheduled to take effect in November
and could result in a further reduction in the volume of German-Iranian trade
without mitigating action on behalf of policymakers.
German policymakers and business representatives have repeatedly
criticized the United States’ pullout from the Iran nuclear accord, urging
Berlin and Brussels to do everything in its power to save the landmark
international agreement.
BSS/XINHUA/HR/