AKIPRESS.COM - Iran placed an outline order 118 Airbus Group SE jetliners including 12 A380 superjumbos and secured an accord with PSA Peugeot Citroen for the modernization of a Tehran car plant as President Hassan Rouhani’s post-sanctions European shopping trip reached Paris.

The aircraft to be bought from Toulouse-based Airbus are worth almost $27 billion at list prices, according to Bloomberg calculations. Assuming all the planes are delivered, Rouhani signed off on deals valued at about 30 billion euros ($33 billion) in a ceremony at the Elysee Palace, the official residence of his French counterpart Francois Hollande, a French official said.

Rouhani is in Europe after a landmark nuclear deal signed with world powers entered force this month, lifting sanctions that have starved Iran’s $400 billion economy of investment and consumer goods. Iran’s central bank Governor Valiollah Seif said in an interview last week that the accord may trigger $50 billion a year in foreign investment, reports Bloomberg.

The Paris accords are comparable in value to transactions announced earlier this week in Italy at the start of Rouhani’s first major foreign visit since the lifting of trade barriers.

Among other deals announced in the French capital, Aeroports de Paris and Bouygues SA will assist in the construction of a new terminal at Tehran’s main Imam Khomeini hub and Vinci SA signed an outline agreement to run and renovate airports at Mashhad and Ispahan.

The Airbus accord covers 45 single-aisle planes comprising 21 from the current-generation A320 family and 24 re-engined A320neos, the company said. The 73 wide-body aircraft ordered include 27 A330s, 18 A330neos, 16 of Airbus’s latest A350s -- in the stretched -1000 variant -- plus the A380s.

The purchase will allow Iran to retire planes that it has kept in service because of the bar on it acquiring new ones, contributing to one of the world’s poorest air-safety records. The country’s passenger fleet averages 26.8 years of age, according to Bloomberg.