By IRNA,
Berlin : The controversial Iran sanction policy of Chancellor Angela Merkel has triggered renewed tensions with Germany’s business community which is eager to continue its lucrative trade with the Mideast country, the daily Handelsblatt reported Saturday.
Merkel’s latest Iran sanction plans have been met with fierce resistance by German
companies which feel abandoned by their government in their efforts not to
succumb to US and Zionist political pressure.
German firms are outraged over the fact that even legal business deals with
Iran which are not subject to UN sanctions, are being torpedoed not only by
the US and the pro-Israel lobby but also by Merkel.
The paper stressed German companies remained unfazed by Merkel’s policy
of discouraging them from doing business with Tehran.
German companies are reportedly determined to preserve their ties with Iran
which has been one of their most durable trading partners.
The Federation of German Wholesale and Foreign Trade (BGA) had earlier labeled
Iran sanctions unbearable.
BGA Managing Director Jens Nagel has repeatedly lambasted “unilateral sanctions (against Iran) as totally incomprehensible.”
Nagel had also voiced mounting concern that German firms were in fact losing the lucrative Iranian market to Asian and European competitors.
The BGA official’s assessment was echoed by the Managing Director of the influential German Near And Middle East Association (Numov) Helene Rang who made clear that a further tightening of sanctions against Iran would “not solve the problem.”
“The sanctions are backfiring,” she added.
The head of the Federation of German Industries (BDI), Juergen Thumann warned earlier that companies are to lose their good business contacts with Iran which they have developed over decades as a result of the ongoing US-Zionist political arm-twisting.
Several renowned German companies are involved in major Iranian infrastructure projects, especially in the petrochemical sector.
Around 50 German firms have their own branch offices in Iran and more than 12,000 companies have their own trade representatives in the country.
BGA President Anton F. Boerner warned earlier that Germany could be among the main losers of Berlin’s disputed Iran sanction policy.
He stressed the embargo would especially hurt medium-sized German companies, many of them family-owned businesses which depend heavily on trade with Iran.
Boerner made clear the ongoing impasse over Tehran’s nuclear program should be resolved through “political and not economic means.”
“We ought to avoid everything which might aggravate the crisis,” he was cited saying.
Meanwhile, the German Chambers of Industry and Commerce (DIHK) pointed out that economic sanctions on Iran could cost more than 10,000 German jobs and have a negative impact on economic growth in his country.
Over 40,000 German jobs are indirectly affected by German-Iranian trade.