French company joins businesses to respond to threat of potential US sanctions
Khodrocar -Peugeot owner PSA has become the latest French company to signal it will pull out of Iran if it cannot get bulletproof protection from potential US sanctions.
The French carmaker said it had begun to suspend its joint ventures in Iran and will look for a waiver protecting it from US sanctions after the Trump administration pulled out of the nuclear deal.
Following the US withdrawal, PSA "began the process of suspending the activities of its JVs, in order to comply with US law by August 6, 2018. With the support of the French Government, the PSA group is in contact with US authorities to consider a waiver,” said PSA in a statement on Monday evening.
"As the PSA group’s activities in Iran represent less than 1 per cent of its turnover, this context does not alter the general objectives of the Push to Pass plan or the current financial orientations,” added PSA.
However, Iran represented a market with great potential for PSA — the carmaker signed a joint venture in 2016 to invest €400m by 2020 and sold 445,000 cars in the country last year.
Last month, Total said it would not be able to continue with its own energy project in Iran without a waiver protecting it from US sanctions, something the oil major did not think was likely.
Although PSA is not currently in the US, chief executive Carlos Tavares recently detailed plans to return to the US market after an absence of more than two decades.
Source:Financial Times
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