US President Donald Trump’s decision to pull the United States out of the 2015 nuclear accord with Iran and reimpose a raft of sanctions will hit European businesses working in Iran.
French automakers Renault and PSA have taken different approaches publicly.
PSA, behind the Peugeot, Citroen and Opel brands, said in June it was preparing to suspend activities in the Islamic republic, its chief foreign market by volume, noting those units account for “less than one percent of sales”.
The group, which is Europe’s second biggest carmaker, last year sold more than 445,000 vehicles in Iran, making the country one of its biggest markets outside France.
Renault says it intends to keep up activities in Iran albeit scaling them back. On July 16, the automaker announced a 10.3 percent drop in sales in Iran to 61,354 units.
Germany’s Daimler was teaming up with two Iranian firms to assemble Mercedes-Benz trucks.
Volkswagen also said last year it would seek to resume sales in Iran for the first time in 17 years, yet the scale of its US activities could force the jettisoning of those plans.
German firms’ business with Iran was a modest $2.6 billion of 2016 exports rising to 3.0 billion last year.
Italy is Iran’s main European trading partner-but Germany is still the bloc’s biggest exporter to Tehran.
Aviation saw beefy contracts drawn up following the nuclear accord as Iran targets modernisation of an ageing fleet. Airbus booked deals for 100 jets although to date only three have been delivered after having US licences bestowed upon them-a necessity given some parts are US-made.
The potential loss of business in Iran would not weigh overly heavily on Airbus as overall orders on its books at the end of June stood at 7,168 planes.
Franco-Italian planemaker ATR was fretting on the fate of 20 planes earmarked for Iranian delivery-though Iran Air said Saturday five ATR-72600 aircraft would arrive Sunday, creeping under the deadline to add to eight already delivered.
