General Electric Co., the world’s biggest maker of power-generation and medical imaging equipment, signed an advocacy groups statement affirming the company’s policy against conducting business with Iran.

The declaration, from the organization, follows the Fairfield-based company’s decision in December 2004 to end new business in the Middle Eastern country. GE announced that decision amid concern by then-President George W. Bush’s administration that the country was speeding development of a nuclear weapon. At the time, Iran provided less than 1 percent of GE’s annual revenue.

As part of its pledge, GE will provide humanitarian health care products to Iranians, according to an e-mailed statement from United Against Nuclear Iran and Peter O’Toole, a company spokesman. GE will donate any profits from such assistance to charitable organizations including the International Rescue Committee, a nonprofit organization, according to the statement.

“For years we have not permitted doing business with state sponsors of terrorism, and this certification is simply further, independent evidence,” O’Toole said in an interview.

After GE’s 2004 decision, the company finished projects under way that its non-U.S. units had agreed to, mostly contracts from GE Hydro in Canada, GE Oil & Gas in Italy and its GE Medical Europe division in France. The company took on no new projects in Iran afterward, O’Toole said.

(Source: News Times)