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Japan seeks to renew economic ties with Iran: Commentator

Friday, 22 January 2016 4:01 PM [ Last Update: Friday, 22 January 2016 4:02 PM ]

This file photo shows Azadegan oil field in southwest Iran.

Press TV has interviewed Michael Penn, a journalist and political commentator in Tokyo, about Japan lifting its sanctions against Iran, joining the ranks of the world's major economies to normalize trade ties with the Islamic Republic.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: How will this benefit both Iran and Japan’s economies respectively?

Penn: Well I can certainly speak to the Japanese side and that is that they are very much eager to re-establish economic relations with Japan. It looks like now that the sanctions are being dropped, they are moving quickly into negotiations for a new investment agreement between Japan and Iran to probably be signed next month and they are beginning to revive old projects which they have considered many years ago but now seem to be wanting to move forward with.

Press TV: And to what capacity was Japan involved in Iranian market in the past and what is Japan’s economy like right now, I heard it is kind of under Abe’s administration kind of sluggish and hopefully maybe this will help boost it to some extent?

Penn: Yes, that is right. Exports are very much something which the Japanese want to increase. In fact in terms of what they have done in the currency market to make Japanese products more competitive by lowering the value of the Japanese yen was for that purpose.

And so one of the areas where they really are focusing the idea of investment, I believe, is in the oil sector. There was an old project about the Azadegan oil field which the Japanese would like to move back into and obviously other export sectors, Japanese products like cars and various machineries and many things of that sort.

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