Foreign investment in Iran’s bourse nearly doubled in year to March

Iran has seen an increasing presence of foreign investors in its stock market as investment by foreign individuals and entities nearly doubled in the Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE) and its subsidiary markets in the year to late March. 

A senior official at Iran’s Securities & Exchange Organization said on Tuesday that foreign investment in the Iranian bourse had reached 46 trillion rials ($184 million) in March, up 84 percent compared to late March 2020. 

Bahador Bijani said that the number of foreign-national investors registered in the TSE and other markets had also increased by 100 percent to reach a total of 3,600 in late March. 

Bijani said the considerable presence of foreigners in the Iranian stock market should be viewed as a major success for the country at a time it has been facing a raft of financial and banking restrictions because of US sanctions. 

“This two-fold increase is a sign of growing inclination of foreign investors to enter the Iran’s capital market,” he said. 

The official said that foreign investment in the Iranian bourse kept rising even over autumn when trade began to drop off in the TSE and other markets. 

Share trading experienced a historic boom in Iran last calendar year as the TSE’s main index TEDPIX reached an enviable record of over two million points in mid-summer.

The boom was mainly due to several rounds of listings held for major state-run companies which caused many households and retail investors to increase their purchases of shares. 

However, the TSE and its subsidiary market Fara Bourse, where the amount of investment is capped, have seen lower volumes of trade over the past six months. 

TEDPIX closed at over 1.307 million points and a market value 52,000 trillion rials (nearly $209 billion) on its final working day on March 17 before the New Year holidays started in Iran.