Iran .. The bleeding of the departure of international companies continues and demands to sue

Jazeera Net-Tehran

After 17 months of US withdrawal from the nuclear deal, China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) left Iran to join its French colleague, Total, while demands continue to be fined and others urged to be used to develop national industry.

Iranian Oil Minister Begin Zanganeh announced on Sunday the withdrawal of China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) from the development of phase 11 of the field "South Pars", stressing that the company "Petrobars" state will take over the project alone.

The Chinese company and France's Total were to cooperate with the Iranian company in developing the South Pars field under a $ 4.8 billion deal signed in 2017.

For his part, Iranian economist Saeed Leylaz considered the international companies weighting their interests with Washington over its interests with Tehran as normal, describing the economic interests of companies that have left Iran and the US threats to impose sanctions on all those who cooperate with it, as "two sides of the same coin."

Excessive damage
Leylaz said in his interview with Al Jazeera Net that dozens of international companies were forced to leave Iran and turned a blind eye to the profits that they hoped to reap from Tehran because of the US sanctions, pointing out that many of these companies have already paid heavy fines to the Iranian side for abandoning previous contracts.

Prof. Shahid Beheshti, an economics professor, pointed out that one of the American goals of exerting extreme pressure on Iran is to push it towards East Asian countries, especially China, stressing that America and Europe will soon discover that they are the main losers of Western sanctions, because of the adoption of Iranian technology by Chinese industry after it was Iranian companies prefer Western technology.

The researcher Laylaz said that his country suffered heavy damage due to US sanctions, and stressed that the Iranian citizen prefers American and European cars over their Chinese counterparts, but the exit of Western car manufacturers from Iran raised their prices in Iranian markets, which prompted the citizen to buy Chinese types of them.

He hoped that his country would take advantage of the circumstances of the US sanctions and the exit of international companies from them to develop the sectors of national industry, stressing that the country's need for civil aircraft, for example, makes investment in this sector feasible, as well as that there is a large market in neighboring countries - such as Iraq and Afghanistan - welcomes Iranian products.

European Cat Evil
According to the Persian-language newspaper Ceyhan, most of the major European companies that contracted with Tehran shortly after the nuclear deal joined US companies and left Iran shortly after the US withdrawal from the nuclear deal and threatened sanctions if it continued to cooperate with Tehran.

International companies such as Boeing and General Electric of America, Total, Peugeot and Airbus of France, Eni and Denelli of Italy, Siemens and Bank of Germany DZ, Swarm and Maersk of Denmark are the most important companies that have left Iran, as well as dozens of other Western companies.

According to the newspaper, all European companies left Iran in the few months after America's exit from the nuclear deal.

For his part, the researcher in the political economy and former MP in the Iranian parliament Nozar Shafi'i that international companies - especially European ones - look at the labor market from the window of capitalism, and that they left Iran for fear of losses due to US sanctions.

Chinese lintel
Speaking to Al Jazeera Net, Shafi'i said that the international companies that left Iran accepted the losses stipulated in the signed contracts, stressing that the Iranian side does not want to close the door for those companies to return to them, although they have won some complaints that they have filed in this regard.

He pointed out that there is a Chinese blame on Iran because of the granting of the lion's share of its projects after the nuclear deal to European companies, attributing the reason for the Iranian desire to bring Western companies to Western technology compared to its eastern counterpart.

Shafi'i added that Iran suffered heavy damage due to the exit of international companies, as well as damage to the national economy due to the return of US sanctions, including the non-entry of Iranian receivables from the sale of crude oil.

Judicial action
Following the exit of international companies from Iran, voices in the Iranian parliament demanded that these companies be sued and fined for breaking contracts signed with them.

Ali Akir Karimi, a member of the Iranian parliament's economic committee, pointed out that although the development of the national economy will not stop with the exit of an international company or a number of them, it cannot be denied the problems it causes for some sectors in the country.

Karimi urged government stakeholders to take measures to prosecute and fine international firms that have abandoned their contracts with Iran to contain the unrest that has threatened the domestic economy.

Iranian voices demanding that these companies be prosecuted say that because they have legal contracts with international companies that have succumbed to US threats, they will rely on them for their legal actions.