Cultivating a taste for Western goods
Along with veils, Tehran's women like to wear Adidas
Borzou Daragahi, Chronicle Foreign Service
American companies may be officially banned from doing business with Iran, but among young Iranians, America sells
Saturday, March 19, 2005
Tehran -- At the Eskan shopping center in northern Tehran, the young men wear Fubu hip-hop clothes and Oakley shades. The young women, wearing scarves that barely adhere to strict Islamic dress codes that require they cover their heads, window-shop in Adidas running shoes.
American companies may be officially banned from doing business with Iran, but among young Iranians, America sells.
"When something is forbidden, people want it more," said Hamid Reza, an employee of a sporting goods store that sells Western goods. "Iran can't officially get American goods. For this reason the young people want it more."
The foreign subsidiaries of the American industrial giants Halliburton and General Electric may have announced plans to slowly pull out of Iran, but Rocky Ansari, a Tehran business consultant who says his clientele list includes the foreign subsidiaries of American firms, says don't believe it. It's business as usual in Iran.
"There are many American companies that are doing business with Iran," he said, estimating total imports of American products at $150 million to $200 million a year.
The U.S. government exempts food, medicine and even tobacco companies from sanctions, so it's no problem finding Pepsi, Coke or Marlboro cigarettes at the local grocery store.
Duracell batteries and Gillette shaving products are also ubiquitous. Duracell has even a started a high-profile billboard campaign.
American brands like Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Xerox are on display at the Mirdamad Computer Center in Tehran, the heart of Iran's growing IT business.
With 70 million increasingly affluent residents, Iran is becoming an attractive market for computer and electronics retailers.
Consultant Siamak Namazi says American firms figure out creative ways of keeping one foot on the ground. "Some are here officially, some are here through some dealer in Dubai," he said.
Other American companies with a presence in Iran include Goodyear, Otis Elevators and Caterpillar. Often the European or Middle East offices of an American company might dispatch reps.
Ansari says the goods come across land borders, from Iraq and Turkey, for example, as well as via seaports in Europe and especially Dubai, the tiny Persian Gulf kingdom that has become the center of trade in the region.
"U.S. authorities know the trade sizes of the tiny Gulf states," says Ansari. "They likely know when a manifest bound for, say, Dubai, is too big for a country of 2 million and is likely heading to Iran." |
