Nasir al-Din Shah had granted a concession…
1891 CE
In exchange, Talbot pays the shah an annual sum of fifteen thousand pounds (present-day one million eight hundred and forty-five thousand pounds; two million three hundred and fifty thousand dollars) in addition to a quarter of the yearly profits after the payment of all expenses and a dividend of five percent on the capital.
By the fall of 1890 the concession had been sold to the Imperial Tobacco Corporation of Persia, a company that some will speculate is essentially Talbot himself as he had heavily promoted shares in the corporation.
The tobacco crop is valuable not only because of the domestic market but because Iranians cultivate a variety of tobacco that is not grown elsewhere, Nicotiana alata, used in hookahs.
A Tobacco Régie (monopoly) had subsequently been established and all the producers and owners of tobacco in Persia are forced to sell their goods to agents of the Régie, who then resell the purchased tobacco at a price that is mutually agreed upon by the company and the sellers with disputes settled by compulsory arbitration.
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The Near and Middle East
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