$6 Billion,
14 Projects

Mohammad-Hadi Rahbari, managing director of NPC International, is an architect by education. A few months ahead of IPF 2001, he described his interpretation of “New Visions” as “coming to a collective wisdom by all civilizations”. Here is Rahbari’s another way forward in another IPF:

Financing Developments: During the 1990s we had the opportunity to utilize financing through direct involvement of NPC and the cooperation of Iranian banks as guarantor. In the Third Five-year Plan or the third phase of NPC developments, we have worked out some innovative ideas together with the international market the first of which has been done with Deutsche Bank. During the third phase, we have the opportunity to utilize the conventional export facilities together with the buyback scheme structure the first of which has been utilized. I am pleased to mention that this task has already been fulfilled. It took us a long time, but today I am proud to say that the phenomenon which was the belief of one bank and the idea of one company has become the belief of the financial institutions worldwide.
There is a chance of cooperation between a Japanese bank and the European community in this regard. I would like to announce that we are now negotiating with Japanese commercial banks a new structure similar to the European one. This will be a new achievement after we have it in place.
The second one is a new syndication that we are following with another European bank in the similar way as the Deutsche Bank. Altogether, we have three structures which are rather different but quite similar in essence.

The Deutsche Bank Package: Concerning what has been worked out as the Deutsche Bank package, we have two credit facilities including buyers credit and commercial credit. The commercial type is backed by banks, and is always shorter and sometimes more expensive. The other type of credit, however, supported by export credit agencies (ECAs), is in a way competitive with that of other ways of financing, but again we have to tolerate the limitations imposed by ECAs. I am proud to announce that the financial clause is met and that the first installment has been made out of this credit.

Joint Ventures: We are currently working on 14 projects under joint venture investment which will amount to nearly $6 billion with the shares ranging from 30% to 70%. Joint venture activities cover different areas which may be related to NPC such as petrochemical projects, clean fuels, infrastructure, utilities and services. It is worth mentioning that 12 of these projects are in the feasibility studies stage, 4 in the basic engineering stage, 2 in bidding, and 4 in the financing stage. The financing is being handled by some leading finance houses including Deutsche Bank, Société Générale, and HVB.

Legal Developments: There is now a more comprehensive definition of foreign capital including project finance, BOT, and buy-back type arrangements. For such arrangements protection and security are provided in case government policies affect the undertakings of foreign entities. A new law is under consideration to ensure the enforceability of new laws for at least 10 years.