Importing Chinese goods

Hamid Reza Asefi believes that importing poor-quality Chinese goods is due to the fact that the Iranian economy has been import-oriented.
"Lifting sanctions is like a double-edged sword. This means that even though it may contain some negative points, it can smoothen the progress of Iran's economic relations with other countries such as China", said Hamid Reza Asefi, the former spokesman of the Iranian foreign ministry. He believes that the final agreement between Iran and the 5+1 will be delayed due to the mistrustful behavior of the US. Additionally, he states his opinion about the Iran-China relations after this final agreement.`



Experts claimed that after the achievement of the final agreement between Iran and the 5+1, the Chinese merchants' good time in the Iranian market would be over. This assertion may find support by the recent statement of Bijan Zangane, the Iranian Oil Minister, who said that the 5.2 billion dollar contract with China's national oil company was cancelled due to their failure in meeting their obligations. Now let us consider President Rouhani's trip to Beijing: do you think the goal of this trip was to bring peace to Beijing's worries about the frozen Iran-China relations?
From one side, China is one of the world's most important economies and the participation in the Shanghai meeting gave President Rouhani an occasion to establish contacts with authorities from other countries such as the Presidents of Russia or China; it is a great opportunity for Iran to develop its relations on an international level. From another side, China's attitude toward the Geneva agreement and the possible final agreement between Iran and the 5+1 can be investigated in two dimensions: first, it is true that China may not be satisfied with a probable agreement as Chinese merchants may lose their positions in the Iranian market; second, lifting sanctions could facilitate the Iranian commercial relations with all other countries including China. Therefore, I believe that lifting the sanctions - which indeed is not plausible in the near future - does not seem to concern China a great deal. As lifting sanctions is time-consuming, I doubt whether it resolves the situation quickly. It is important to have a realistic approach toward the sanctions and the recent changes. However, it is a double-edged sword, as I said lifting the sanctions may facilitate the economic relations with China. Besides being worried about an improvement of the relations between Iran and Europe, they are satisfied with the possibilities of lifting the sanctions.

So you mean that lifting sanctions does not severely affect the Iran-China relations?
I do not think so, as China is incompatible in some ways. It is true that low-quality Chinese goods have entered the Iranian market; however, one should not forget that they have good-quality merchandise as well. Chinese companies might not be able to compete with their western counterparts in the aspect of oil and the hi-tech industries; however, they are advanced in other fields such as road and dam building or railway construction among others. Therefore, I personally do not imagine a noticeable decline in the Iran-China relations, as they are really wide and deep. The Iranian authorities must attempt to stop the import of low-quality goods from China as well as many other countries to Iran. I think that in order to improve the economic situation, the Iranian authorities should not restrict the domestic producers and productions, as the prosperity of Iran's economy depends on domestic productions and producers.
Evidently, our problems with Chinese companies are not easy to be solved. From one side, Iran has dismissed Chinese companies in upstream and downstream oil industry projects due to their shortcomings. From the other side, China has blamed the Iranian labor office for imposing high taxations on Chinese labors.
Chinese companies are not only active in the Iranian market; actually, their traces can be found almost everywhere from developing countries to developed ones. They are working peacefully in other countries; therefore, there is a possibility that the Iranian side has some shortcomings as well. I believe that both sides have had some problems; partially, it is the problem of the Chinese side and in some parts it is the result of Iranian mismanagement.

Considering the cooperation requests from European companies: how do you anticipate the collaboration of Iran and China in the future if the final agreement with the 5+1 will be achieved?
I believe we have enough projects which makes the presence of all companies including Chinese and European ones possible. In addition, I am dubious whether the big European oil companies start their collaborations with Iran quickly.
Currently, Shell and Total have announced their willingness in restarting their commercial relations with Iran.
They are waiting for the sanctions to be completely lifted.
And you do not think that this is plausible in the near future?
The untruthful behavior of the American side has resulted in our pessimism. It is possible to merely say something and make people happy. I would love to imagine that the sanctions will be lifted quickly and I believe this is the long lasting wish of all the Iranian people. However, the American stances and performance do not allow us to be hopeful.
The recent news implies that in addition to the 20 billion dollars barter with Russia, there is 30 billion dollars barter with Chinese on its way. This means that our trade relation with China will increase from 43 billion dollars to about 70 billion. Which goods do you think we can import in exchange for the exported oil?
We must minimize the consumer goods' import and instead increase the capital goods which are beneficial to our industrial productions. This will increase our domestic capacities and lower our production failure.
Obviously, China has concentrated its policies on the export of consumer goods. How can we change this policy toward a more capital-oriented one?
This requires cultural works. From one side it is the government's fault that Iranian citizens demand low quality foreign goods more than domestic products. However, from the other side, the domestic producers are to be blamed since instead of concentrating on the production and an enhanced quality of their goods they have lost the competition to the foreigners. This trend has existed for long and since the revolution. Unfortunately, the Iranian economy is not export- but rather import- oriented and all our problems result from this feature.
Why have we not expanded our political relations with China as much as our commercial relations?
The political relations with China are quite good and acceptable. It is true that the political relations are not as equal as the commercial relations; yet they are not few. One reason is that China might think that Iran has been forced to expand its relations with this country. In other words, since the position of Iran in the international level has sunk, they are confident about their economic relations with Iran regardless of developing political relations with this country.