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PARIS, May 22: French minister for external trade Francois Loos has been to Iran as part of a wide-ranging two-week long trip to the region, and this at the head of a delegation of 30 French company heads whose stated purpose in making the trip is to send a message to America, that France may have been (unfairly) excluded from taking part in the reconstruction of Iraq, but that the French business sector plans nevertheless to make use of France’s long-term experience in the Gulf and the Middle East to step up its presence in a part of the world not subject to America’s newfound economic hegemony.
The visit to Iran has already paid off, not only with the signing of a major bilateral accord on investment that for the first time places contracts signed by French companies with Iran under the jurisdiction of international law — and no longer under that exclusively of Iranian law — but also in terms of the many contracts signed by the French business leaders during the recent trip to Tehran.
Jean Caghassi says that he signed a major contract with Iranian authorities, and said that he was surprised at the access to high-level contacts he was able to have in a country where the State controls 90 percent of all business enterprise. “We were pleased to see that French resistance to the United States over Iraq has paid off for us in the form of greater access than ever to Iranian officials, indeed I was able myself to discuss a contract with the Iranian finance minister himself.”
FRENCH ENTREPRENEUR: Bertrand Cluzel says that if all goes to plan, the French businessman should be producing by the end of the year a new soft drink especially destined for the Gulf.
Produced by a Franco-Qatari joint venture being set up in association with an important local businessman, the new drink, which will be non-alcoholic, will be composed of tea, malt and mint, and will be especially destined for the Muslim market, eventually hopes Mr Cluzel, for all of the region, indeed the Arab World.
The idea for the drink germinated a year ago, and was developed during the recent visit to Doha of a group of seventy French businessmen, among them Mr Cluzel, who accompanied French state secretary for external trade Renaud Dutreil on a trip ostensibly undertaken to “re-balance” France’s relations with the Gulf, also allow Gulf states like Qatar to re-stabilise their own ties with the United States.
