Around five to six million Iranians are living overseas, constituting 7% of the total population of the country.
Figures on their wealth are unreliable, as different sources release widely divergent numbers, Forsat-e Emrooz daily reported.
In March 2007, the Iranian Parliament Research Center, citing National Elites Foundation, put the capital assets of Iranian expatriates at over $1.3 trillion and those of Iranian-Americans alone at over $900 billion.
More than 6,500 companies and 10,000 university students were living in Dubai then and 1,400-odd Iranians have invested in Dubai Stock Exchange.
In January 2014, Alireza Rahmatnia, a deputy vice president, put Iranian investments abroad at around $700 billion, $200 billion of which were concentrated in the UAE alone.
In June 2015, Javad Qavam Shahidi, a senior official with the Iranian Expatiates Affairs High Council, mentioned an estimated $2 trillion as the wealth of foreign-based Iranians.
The interesting point is that this amount exceeded the country’s GDP in 2014 and that absorption of just 10% of this potential capital could work miracles for the country’s economy.
This is while the outflow of capital from the country is not unlikely. Rich Iranian investors are expected to put their money into buying real estates across the world.
Research by Rockstone Real Estate shows Iranian merchants and millionaires are highly likely to purchase real estate worth £6 billion within five to 10 years following the removal of nuclear sanctions.
London, Dubai, Switzerland, Germany and France are the odds-on favorite to become their destinations, the report reads.