US - Iran Relations: Rouhani Says Sanctions Cost Tehran $200B In Income, Investments

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Tuesday renewed U.S. sanctions have cost his country $100 billion in oil revenue in the last two years and another $100 billion in other income and investment, but the country’s economy is “on the right track.”

At a ceremony inaugurating express train service between Tehran and Hashtgerd, Rouhani said the country is managing under the weight of the sanctions “even though life for the people is hard.”

“Despite all the problems and pressures, we are on the right track,” he said.

Iranian income from its oil industry has dwindled to $17 billion annually. Rouhani said that figure should grow to $25 billion by 2021, with a projection of $93 billion by 2025. Crude oil sales are about half what they were before sanctions were imposed.

“Our enemies have realized that they cannot bring us to our knees through maximum pressure,” he said Monday during a visit to a petrochemical industry expo.

“Their entire goal was to get us to the negotiating table so that we resign ourselves to whatever demand they have, but this is impossible in our Islamic Iran,” he said, referring to U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal in a bid to force renegotiation of the pact. Since then, tensions between Tehran and Washington have been mounting.

Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said he expects oil production of 100 million tons in 2020, twice the 2013 output when Rouhani took office.

“This means a big movement in the country. We did all this in a time of economic warfare. If we had not been in the economic war, more than $200 billion of additional revenues would have entered the country,” Rouhani said.

The People’s Bank of China plans to invest $3.7 billion in petrochemical refinery projects in Iran, central banker Abdolnasser Hemmati announced Monday.

“We will soon witness a significant increase in prtchem [petrochemical] production,” Hemmati said in an Instagram post.

Masoud Khansari, chairman of Tehran’s Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture, said he expects exports to neighboring countries to hit $100 billion next year.