Flagge Iran zum Thema US-Sanktionen gegen Iran

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The German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action has suspended support for foreign trade and investment and German-Iranian economic formats in light of the very serious situation in Iran.

The suspension includes the export credit and investment guarantees, the German-Iranian Energy Dialogue, the Manager Training Programme and the Foreign Trade Fair Programme. Exceptions can only be permitted in the case of justified humanitarian reasons. The suspension has already been implemented for investment guarantees; a formal suspension for export credit guarantees will be introduced in January 2023. Germany Trade and Invest (GTAI) and the Delegation of German Business in Iran have also reduced their activities to a minimum.

The German-Iranian trade volume in 2021 was €1.76 billion; from January to September 2022, it was €1.49 billion. The assumption of export and investment guarantees vis-à-vis Iran had been suspended for many decades. Only since 2016 has there been a brief phase of opening up these instruments as a result of the Implementation Day for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCpoA) and the lifting of the EU sanctions. During this phase, investment guarantees were issued or extended for a few projects (with a total cover volume of around €123 million). However, since the end of 2018, the Federal Government has no longer received any applications for new investment guarantees. The same applies to export credit guarantees: the Federal Government assumed export credit guarantees for exports to Iran in 2017 (cover volume around €176 million) and 2018 (around €37 million), but no longer since 2019.

The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, in consultation with other Federal ministries, has now decided to suspend these instruments completely.