Iran’s Trade Centers Are Expanding Its International Reach—and Its Exposure Risks

Last fall in Armenia’s capital city, Iran opened its largest of around 60 trade centers that it now operates across 35 different countries. The Armenia one, its website says, offers a gateway for Iranian business to enter the Eurasian market, a potential export lifeline amid tightening international sanctions.

Through these gateways also comes a complex dynamic of exposure risk.

Kharon’s research after the opening of the Armenian trade center found that its clientele includes sanctioned Iranian entities, as well as others operating in critical industries, often under the control of the Iranian state. It grants such actors a new reach.

The details: Besides Armenia, Iran notably has opened such trade centers in China, India, Russia and Turkey. For each, the Trade Promotion Organization of Iran issues licenses allowing businesses to operate and trade their products in those countries, “with the aim of facilitating foreign trade, providing business consulting, marketing of Iranian products and services, providing trade and consulting services in different sectors, and helping to execute commercial contracts,” as an Iranian media outlet described it.

Armenia’s colossal trade center in Yerevan, spanning nearly 200,000 square feet, features more than 100 specialized booths, designed to cater to Iranian traders and manufacturers in industries including oil, gas, petrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, construction and advanced technologies. U.S. sanctions have targeted many of these industries, petroleum products in particular. 

The center’s opening ceremony reflected its significance, drawing a crowd that included Iranian parliamentary leaders, Armenia’s minister of economy and Iran’s U.S.-sanctioned minister of industry and trade.

Ownership and management: The Iran Trade Center in Armenia is a joint venture between a holding company of Gagik Tsarukyan, one of Armenia’s wealthiest individuals, and the Iran-based Pars Helal Caspian Company. The latter is an agent of the Export Guarantee Fund of Iran, a state-owned fund established “with the purpose of supporting, developing and promoting” Iranian exports, according to its LinkedIn page. The fund also partners with the trade center, where it has a booth itself.

The owners of Pars Helal Caspian—Hajiali Olamaei, Erfan Olamaei and Saman Olamaei—also own a number of businesses based in Iran and Armenia, the majority of which operate in the oil and gas industry. One of them, Gold Petrol LLC, appeared on a 2021 list of Armenia’s “three largest importers” of gasoline, according to media reporting, and it shares managers with the Armenia trade center.

• One example: the commercial manager for both Gold Petrol and the trade center, who was previously a petroleum inspector for the U.S.-sanctioned National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Company. Its parent, the state-owned National Iranian Oil Company, is one of the center’s partners. The Iran Trade Center in Armenia shares managers with several of the Olamaeis’ other Iran-based businesses as well.

Connecting the dots: Other exhibition booths at the Armenia trade center suggest further exposure risks—including through a host of additional sanctioned Iranian petrochemical actors and the open presence of one European country.

Three partnerships that stood out:

• One non-Iranian booth, labeled “The Republic of Belarus,” is operated by the Armenian-Belarusian Trading House Ar-Be LLC, an Armenian entity acting on behalf of the state of Belarus, Kharon found. Ar-Be serves as the official representative and distributor of sanctioned Belarusian agricultural machinery manufacturers in Armenia. The initiative is another venture by Tsarukyan, the Armenian businessman behind the Iran Trade Center, together with entities ultimately controlled by Belarus.
• The Armenian branch of the U.S.-sanctioned Iranian Bank Mellat provides financial and logistics services at the trade center. According to an Instagram post by the trade center last year, companies can “open an account at this branch and receive currency in Armenia and settle in Iran.” Opening accounts, the post said, is just one of several “banking solutions” the center has considered “to facilitate export and trade with Armenia.”
• A partnership with one of Armenia’s top freight-forwarders, Eurasia Logistic LLC, allows Iranian traders to access logistical support at the center. Tsarukyan and Arman Hajiali Olamaei, head of the Iran Trade Center in Armenia, established that company to facilitate cargo transportation between Iran and Armenia for their clients. Eurasia Logistics LLC, whose website says it maintains offices in both countries’ capitals and along the border, markets itself as a “hassle-free” transporter capable of handling a wide range of cargo, including petrochemical products, minerals, iron and heavy machinery.

In brief: Iran’s trade centers abroad give it a growing avenue to expand its commercial dealings in countries, like Armenia, that are not targeted by sanctions but are open for business. The question is where the exported Iranian goods—and, possibly, where the U.S. in response—go from there.

Read more on Iran:

• A Sprawling Iranian Network Is Facilitating Its Tech Exports, Sidestepping Sanctions

• Flouting Sanctions Risks, Iranian Oil Brokers Are Advertising Openly on Instagram

• Two Iranian Shadow Fleet Firms Were Sanctioned. Their Directors Have a History.