Minister of Roads Reacts to Importing Labor and Housing Technology from China: We Are Looking to Attract Foreign Investment

On Wednesday, February 21, the Minister of Housing in Ebrahim Raisi's government responded to the proposal of Tehran municipality collaborating with Chinese companies for housing construction in the capital and the discussion of transferring Chinese prisoners to Iran as cheap labor. Mehrdad Bazrpash stated, 'We need more financial resources than technology.' He mentioned that the Chinese have made multiple proposals and that agreements have been reached in several cases, adding, 'Our goal is primarily to bring foreign investment into the construction and housing sector, and we are looking to attract foreign investment.' Reports indicate that companies active in China's construction industry have over $390 billion in debt, which poses significant risks for their presence in Iran. Lotfollah Forouzandeh, deputy to Tehran's mayor Alireza Zakani, had previously stated on February 14 that 'we brought the Chinese to build houses in Tehran because we do not have the technology for industrial housing construction.' Prior to that, Hamidreza Sarami, deputy for urban planning and architecture at Tehran municipality, had informed the newspaper 'Donya-e-Eqtesad' on January 31 about the plan for 'neighborhood construction by private Chinese construction companies on a large scale of over 1,000 units' on 'brownfield' lands in areas 9 to 16 of Tehran. Following this, the secretary of the Housing and Construction Builders Association announced that China intends to transfer its prisoners to Iran for housing construction. Ramin Ghoran mentioned that those imprisoned in China are transferred to other countries for work at lower wages. He emphasized that if the presence of the Chinese in Iran's construction industry is to lead to technology transfer and investment, they should be treated with the utmost respect. However, if we are to allocate capital and they are to work, that is the wrong path. The Ebrahim Raisi government, which began its activities with the slogan of constructing one million housing units annually, has yet to launch any significant projects in this area after more than two and a half years. The issue of employing Chinese criminals in Iran for housing construction has been discussed in interviews, with reports indicating that the housing crisis has persisted for 39 months under the Ministry of Roads, and media supportive of the government have acknowledged that the promise of building one million housing units per year has not been fulfilled.