European investors with ambitions to tap Iranian markets if US sanctions are lifted under the upcoming Joe Biden administration are being invited to attend a December 14-16 conference funded by the European Union.

The Europe-Iran Business Forum comes under the UN’s International Trade Center—an agency jointly managed by the United Nations and the World Trade Organization (WTO)—and the Iran Trade Promotion Organization. The Milan-based European House-Ambrosetti is also supporting the event. It will be hosted on the company’s online conference platform.

The forum will be the first event of its kind in two years, according to its organisers.

International conferences on Iran’s economy, trade and banking sectors became relativey common following the signing of the November 2015 nuclear deal by Iran, the US, the UK, France, Germany, Russia and China. But they became a rarity after President Donald Trump pulled the US out of the accord in 2018 and reimposed crushing sanctions on the Islamic Republic and introduced secondary sanctions aimed at many foreign investors that continued to do business with the country.

President-elect Joe Biden has pledged to return the US to the nuclear deal, which was brokered by the Obama administration when he was vice president, if Iran returns to full compliance with it in exchange for the US doing the same and thereby lifting the Trump sanctions.

The forum website is www.europeiranbusinessforum.com/