Even in those areas, government participation in the private sector may pose difficulties. A privatization program last decade saw dozens of previously government-owned companies floated on the Tehran Stock Exchange, including banks and petrochemical firms. Yet many of their majority shareholders are large state pension funds or conglomerates owned by state-run foundations or the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps.

About $46.4 billion of shares in government-owned companies have been sold off by various means, including through flotations on the stock exchange, since 2001, the Iran Privatization Organization (IPO) said in August. Almost 30 percent, more than $12 billion, of it has been transferred to the private sector in the past two years.

“As long as a policy is not adopted that doesn’t nurture the private sector to the level that it seizes the whole of the economy, Iran will not witness the level of development that it needs,” Mohammad Sadr Hasheminejad, chairman of Iran’s Eqtesade Novin Bank and the Stratus Holding Group, one of the country’s first privately owned conglomerates, said in his office in an affluent neighborhood of Tehran. Iran’s economic “sickness won’t be treated.”

Economist Laylaz pointed to another obstacle: a dual exchange rate -- one announced by the Central Bank of Iran and another used on open markets -- that complicates operating in the country for foreign businesses.


Exchange Rates


“As an investor you should be able at any time to change your dollars in the open market but the government doesn’t consider it legitimate,” Laylaz said. “Only if the exchange rate is unified can foreign investment officially be brought inside.”

For some investors the political risk of working in Iran still poses serious questions, particularly when it comes to guarantees on their capital. The current nuclear deal contains a "snap-back" mechanism that would reinstate sanctions if Iran is seen to have not kept to its terms.

"If that begins, make damn sure your contracts have some provisions in there," Charles Hollis, a former diplomat and managing director of FTI Consulting, said on Sept. 24 to a conference on investing in Iran.

Iranian officials have told visiting trade delegations that government regulations are designed to keep foreign investments safe using the central bank as a main guarantor. But questions remain over legal jurisdictions and how future disputes between a foreign commercial entity and the Iranian government can be resolved.


Investor Concerns