Germany’s Daimler Says to Resume Truck Business in Iran

A senior official with Germany’s Daimler AG, the maker of Mercedes-Benz cars, said the company’s truck business is returning to Iran following the removal of anti-Tehran sanctions.

Daimler Trucks head Wolfgang Bernhard said on Saturday that “there is a huge demand for commercial vehicles in Iran” and that “we plan to quickly resume our business activities in the market there,” AP reported.

He added that the Stuttgart-based company has so far signed letters of intent with local partners Iran Khodro Diesel and Mammut Group to arrange a “comprehensive re-entry” into the Islamic Republic where Daimler started doing business in the 1950s.

Bernhard went on to say that a joint venture for local production of trucks, under Daimler’s Mercedes-Benz brand, will be launched in Iran under the cooperation documents.

The two sides will also cooperate on engine production and establishment of a sales arm, he added.

Bernhard further said that plans also include setting up a representative office, and sales of Daimler’s Mitsubishi FUSO brand trucks in cooperation with Mayan, part of the Dubai-based Mammut Group.

Daimler’s business in Iran started in 1953 and it sold up to 10,000 vehicles a year, but was interrupted from 2010 to 2016 by the sanctions.

The sanctions were lifted after Tehran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany) on July 14, 2015 reached an agreement on Iran’s peaceful nuclear program and started implementing it on January 16.