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Ramin Rabii, Turquoise |
Don’t be fooled by the hype. The expected removal of sanctions from Iran – probably between the end of this year and Easter 2016 – will not lead to an immediate flood of investment and a warm welcome back into the fold of international finance. Those things will happen. But they will take years rather than months.
The mood in Tehran is cautiously optimistic. After years under sanctions, there is a palpable fear that something could still go wrong to derail sanctions relief – most obviously a vote against it in the US Congress so overwhelming that president Obama can’t veto it – but nevertheless, people are planning ahead for brighter times. And as they plan, financiers realize that a great many further challenges await, some of them real, some a function of misperception or fear.
“If developments go according to expectations, then the impact will be enormous,” says Ahmad Azizi, senior adviser to the governor of the Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran. “But I very much doubt we will see things along those lines.
