Iran attracts US$3.6 billion of foreign investment

Iranian Minister of Economy and Finance Seyed Shamseddin Hosseini announced on Tuesday that the country has been able to attract US$3.6bln of foreign investment, Iran's Fars News Agency (FNA) reported. "Foreign investment in Iran has increased by 124 per cent and reached US$3.6 billion compared with the last two years," Hosseini told reporters Tuesday. He mentioned that while average growth rate for foreign investment stands at 5 per cent in the world, relevant figures show that foreign investment in Iran witnessed a 20 per cent growth last year. In June, Iranian officials announced that the country has set a record in attracting foreign investment funds. Head of Iran's Organization for Investment and Economic and Technical Assistance Behrouz Alishiri said Iran has beaten a historical record in attracting direct foreign investments. "In 2010, the country has broken a record in attraction of direct foreign investment, and statistics indicate that we had the highest (investment) attraction rate compared with all the previous years," Alishiri said at the time. Alishiri, however, pointed out that it takes a month to release the exact figure for the investment growth. The Iranian official also noted that in the next Persian calendar year, Iran plans to boost its attraction of foreign investment by 50 percent.