Iran placed an outline order 118 Airbus
Group SE jetliners including 12 A380 superjumbos and secured an accord with PSA
Peugeot Citroen for the modernization of a Tehran car plant as President Hassan
Rouhani’s post-sanctions European shopping trip reached Paris.
The aircraft to be bought from
Toulouse-based Airbus are worth almost $27 billion at list prices, according to
Bloomberg calculations. Assuming all the planes are delivered, Rouhani signed
off on deals valued at about 30 billion euros ($33 billion) in a ceremony at
the Elysee Palace, the official residence of his French counterpart Francois
Hollande, a French official said.
Rouhani is in Europe after a landmark
nuclear deal signed with world powers entered force this month, lifting
sanctions that have starved Iran’s $400 billion economy of investment and
consumer goods. Iran’s central bank Governor Valiollah Seif said in an
interview last week that the accord may trigger $50 billion a year in foreign
investment.
The Paris accords are comparable in
value to transactions announced earlier this week in Italy at the start of
Rouhani’s first major foreign visit since the lifting of trade barriers.
Among other deals announced in the
French capital, Aeroports de Paris and Bouygues SA will assist in the
construction of a new terminal at Tehran’s main Imam Khomeini hub and
Vinci SA signed an outline agreement to run and renovate airports at Mashhad
and Ispahan.
The Airbus accord covers 45 single-aisle
planes comprising 21 from the current-generation A320 family and 24 re-engined
A320neos, the company said. The 73 wide-body aircraft ordered include 27 A330s,
18 A330neos, 16 of Airbus’s latest A350s -- in the stretched -1000 variant --
plus the A380s.
The purchase will allow Iran to retire
planes that it has kept in service because of the bar on it acquiring new ones,
contributing to one of the world’s poorest air-safety records. The country’s
passenger fleet averages 26.8 years of age, according to website
Planespotters.net.
Auto Deal
Peugeot and long-time local ally
Iran Khodro will invest 400 million euros over five years upgrading their auto
plant near Tehran in what the French carmaker said is the first industrial
accord signed by a Western company since sanctions were removed.
The venture will produce 100,000
vehicles a year starting in late 2017, with output eventually doubling. The
revamped factory, which opened about 50 years ago, will make Peugeot’s 208
hatchback, 301 sedan and 2008 crossover.
French container line CMA CGM SA also
agreed to cooperate on shipping and terminal development. Suez
Environnement Co. will work on water-treatment measures in Tehran, Sanofi
signed an accord on health products and Total SA inked a purchase accord for
Iranian crude oil.
It’s “not surprising” that Italy and
France have been first-movers in drumming up business with Iran after the
lifting of sanctions, given that prior to 2011 some 20 percent of the Middle
Eastern country’s trade was with Europe, Florence Eid-Oakden, chief executive
officer at Arabia Monitor, said in a Bloomberg Television interview.
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