Unofficial numbers indicate that since March more than 1,000 apartments and villas have been bought by Iranians in Turkey, Iran Labour News Agency reported the head of the Iran-Turkey Chamber of Commerce as saying on July 31.

The collapse in the value of the Iranian rial (IRR) since the US announced its intention to attack Iran’s economy with heavy sanctions has left Iranians scouring the investment horizon for secure assets.“Some of our compatriots have begun to invest in the [Turkish] property sector for more value [than can be found in Iran],” chamber head Reza Kami reportedly said.

Turkey offers limited residency rights to those who invest in property in the country. It also awards the option of a Turkish passport to those who buy property worth more than $1mn. Importantly, Iranian passport holders enjoy visa-free access to the neighbouring state, with several thousand now calling the country home.

The villas lately sold to Iranians are said to have an average price of $160,000 and are located in various cities of Turkey and not necessarily in seaside resorts.

As Iran strives to avoid an economic crisis caused by the US attempting to force Tehran to renegotiate its role in the Middle East, Turkey is of course battling its own market troubles which some observers feel could turn into an emerging market debt-and-currency crisis. But Kami noted that Iranians were attracted by the fact that property prices in Turkey have not risen in recent years.

Kami added: "[Iran and Turkey’s] economic relations, especially in the private sector, are the same as in the [recent] past, only in recent months changes in government policies and the government’s strict rules on trade have caused the volume of trade to decline.”

"At the height of [the last] international sanctions, we had the best relations with Turkey, and the volume of trade exchanges reached $22bn [in 2014], but last year we only sent $7.5bn in exports to Turkey and took $3.5bn in imports," he said.

He also noted that in the first quarter of the 2018/2019 Persian year, Iran’s exports grew dramatically “and we expect to be able to post a new record in 2018”.

"Most of our exports are oil, energy, petrochemical products and coloured metals, and the imports are mostly machinery, spare parts, automotive, internal combustion engines, paper and cardboard," Kami said.