Appointment at the Chamber of Commerce

On Sunday the 6^th we met with Ms. Marin from the German Chamber of Commerce.

She works in the consulting section and will be Abusar´s supervisor until the end of September. Ms. Marin, who is married to an Iranian and speeks Farsi fluently, could tell us a lot about the stick and stones coming up our way.

The AHK itself, for instance, does not accept students from abroad, who don´t posses an Iranian Passport, just like Abusar does. Foreign students need an official invitation from the AHK, to get a business visa which means that Chamber of Commerce can be held responsible for the actions of the trainee during his stay in Iran. This is a risk the AHK, just like most of the other companies in Iran, don´t want to take.

An Iranian student who wants to go abroad for a traineeship faces some difficulties as well. We were told that Iranian men who didn’t absolve their military service yet, don´t receive their permission to go abroad and hence their passport. Moreover Mrs. Marin assumes that we will have a hard time getting visa for Iranian students, even for Germany. On our appointment with german embassy representatives on the 9^th we are going to inform ourselves in how far it is possible to get Iranian trainees to Germany. The reasoning behind german reluctance to give Visa to young men, students, is that they fear the students would just stay in Germany.

Even though getting trainees in and out of Iran is linked with bureaucratic obstacles, Mrs. Marin pointed out that one very important precondition is given, the demand for such a project by the Iranian students.