On January 16th, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of
Action (JCPOA) negotiated between Iran and six world powers
took effect. This ended years of economic and financial sanctions against the
Islamic Republic. It also undid the pariah status of Iran which began with
its 1979 revolution. Besides decreasing political and nuclear tensions, the
JCPOA has significant economic implications:
It unfreezes tens of billions of dollars worth of Iranian
assets.
Nearly
82 million consumers rejoin the world community. The country has an 86.8%
literacy rate, 68.9 million mobile subscribers, and 22.9 million internet
users.
Years
of deferred infrastructure and other investment end. Previously blocked
from doing business, foreign companies can now legally sell to consumers,
businesses, and government agencies in Iran.
China and France were immediate
beneficiaries. China's President Xi
Jinping visited Tehran to discuss a 25-year plan to expand
trade and relations, with the goal of US$600 billion in trade within a
decade. Right after Jinping left the country, Iranian President Hassan
Rouhani traveled to France to negotiate the purchase of 118
Airbus planes to restock Air Iran's fleet. Automaker Peugeot Citroen
pledged €400 million over the next five years to a joint venture with Khodro, its pre-sanction
partner. And French oil company Total said
it would buy crude oil from Iran and study potential development in that
country.
Looking ahead, Rouhani tweeted that,
"Iran has so much to offer the world as a top tourist destination;
hence investment in aviation, hotels & railways is more important than
ever" and "Our strategy is no longer one of the past – to sell
oil & import end products – but rather to attract foreign investment in
order to form JVs [joint ventures]." This outward-looking strategy
creates new opportunities for foreign companies ranging frommanufacturers to
the hospitality industry to financial services –
and for the language service providers that can translate into Persian (aka
Farsi).
Rouhani's vision could bump up the standing of Persian in CSA Research's annual study
of language support on websites. It ranked #22 on our 2015
pre-JCPOA study of language support at the 2,407 most heavily trafficked
websites. Persian appears in the third tier of preferred tongues as the
slowest-growing of the top 25 languages in terms of economic potential
because, as we wrote at the time, "some [companies] avoid Persian if
they have no product or service distribution in Iran." With that
caveat no longer in effect, the online gross domestic product associated
with Persian (US$185.40 billion in 2015) could overtake that of Indonesian
($192.86 billion) by 2017. Localization managers at global companies should
ask their LSPs about plans for Persian.
LSPs that want to grow their Middle Eastern revenue should add Persian to
complement their investment in Arabic, Hebrew,
Turkish, and other regional languages. That means recruiting
linguists, project managers, salespeople, and other staff to market, sell,
and support the region. Those that don't add Persian to their language
portfolios will miss out as their manufacturing and service industry
prospects target the Iranian opportunity.
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