Iran will have at least two percent of economic growth in the first year following the removal of sanctions against the country in the wake of a possible nuclear deal, an Iranian economic expert said on Saturday.
"If there is to be a deal, on which I am optimistic, our estimates show that there will be one or two percent more economic growth for the country in the following 12 months, that is, in this case we will have two to three percent of economic growth," Saeed Leylaz told Xinhua.
Tehran's stock market and the value of the national currency against foreign currencies will rebound under psychological point of view, he said.
The expert, however, ruled out the immediate improvement in the oil industry and exports.
Iran needs to rebuild its economy; it did not have enough investment and proper productivity in the oil sector for the past 10 years, and even with a deal, these big problems like mismanagement, corruption, lack of productivity, will not disappear overnight, he said.
Due to the Western financial and economic sanctions, foreign investments have declined to a significant extent and Iran is striving to lure foreign investors for the post-sanction era, with the oil sector greater need of recovery.
"In oil industry, we have an investment shortage of more than $250 billion at the moment. We need huge amount of money to rebuild the sector since in recent years, there was virtually no foreign investment in this sector," the expert said.
Iran has good experience in working with foreign partners in the oil sector and the Oil Ministry has a plan and programs to attract the foreign investment in oil, gas and petrochemical sectors, Leylaz said.
"It seems that there will be $3 billion to $5 billion new investment in the country per year, because this is the only sector which is immediately able to attract foreign investment, other sectors will take a lot more time to take in foreign investment," he added.
International companies withdrew from Iran as the United States and European Union imposed sanctions on Iran's oil and gas industries in the past few years.
Earlier this month, Iran's Oil Ministry announced that it would introduce a new model of contracts to replace the existing 'buyback' mode of foreign investment in oil sector.
Under the new contract, foreign investors will be paid with a share of the output, head of Oil Contracts Revision Committee Mehdi Hosseini said.
The move is to encourage foreign investment in Iran's energy sector if sanctions could be lifted as the result of the ongoing nuclear talks in Vienna.
As for China's role in Iran's economic growth after a potential deal, Leylaz said "in economy especially in technology, you cannot change your direction suddenly in one night", therefore, China will remain Iran's main partner for a long period for the competitive prices of its products and cost of services as well as its state-of-art technology.
In the new era of Iran's interaction with the world, Chinese products and services should be more competitive than those from Western countries since there will be more competitors for Chinese companies in Iran.
"But at last, at the end of the day, we will be able to continue our very good ties, economic and technological ties with China," he added.
Talks between Iran and five UN Security Council permanent members plus Germany were extended into another overtime until Monday after the deadlines of June 30, July 7 and July 9 were missed.