China has emerged as Iran’s top economic partner, investing heavily in the oil and gas sector and filling the gaps left by Western firms forced out in recent years by international sanctions.
Last year, China became Iran’s premier trade partner, with bilateral trade worth US$21.2 billion against US$14.4 billion three years earlier.
The figures confirm the exponential growth in commercial ties between the two countries, which were almost non-existent 15 years ago, when trade volumes amounted to just US$400 million.
Official data show Western sanctions have opened the way for Chinese firms, which last year directly supplied Iran with 13 percent (US$7.9 billion) of its imports.
Iranian estimates also suggest that an equivalent amount was imported indirectly through the United Arab Emirates last year.
The West is pressuring China to back further sanctions against Iran over its controversial nuclear program. New sanctions, however, could harm China’s burgeoning economic ties with Tehran and Beijing insists diplomacy is the best way to end the standoff.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband is in China for a four-day trip, during which the issues of Iran’s nuclear program and sanctions are certain to come up.
Prior to China’s ascendancy, Germany was Iran’s largest importer for more than 20 years and the growth in Sino-Iranian trade ties is expected to continue this year with the recovery of the global economy, a European analyst said.
Chinese companies are also making investments in a number of major projects in Iran, like the construction of a motorway linking Tehran and the Caspian Sea, via the Alborz mountains.
China is investing significantly in Iran’s energy sector, although its oil purchases from the Islamic republic are a meager 11.4 percent, far behind Angola and Saudi Arabia, which supply more than half of Beijing’s crude imports.
With about US$15 billion to US$20 billion worth of oil and gas contracts signed and an equivalent amount of new investments being negotiated, according to oil experts in Tehran, China has emerged as Iran’s largest foreign investor.
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