TEHRAN - The Bank of Industry and Mine has allocated 46 trillion rials (about $1.3 billion) to small and medium-sized enterprises in the first 10 months of the current Iranian calendar year, which began on March 21, 2015, an increase of 41 percent compared to the same period last year, the bank’s managing director said on Monday.

Speaking to reporters in a press conference, Ali Ashraf Afkhami explained that the National Development Fund will finance over 200 plans in food, textile, tile, cement, wood, pharmaceutical, and car industries.
Afkhami presented a general report of his bank’s activities, particularly after the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
“On the first day of implementation, we opened 14 letters of credit, valued at 100 million euros, in Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, and Italy,” Afkhami said, adding that another 16 L/Cs are ready to be approved within the next two weeks.
He mentioned that in the past couple of years, the bank has opened over 10 billion dollars in lines of credit, out of which 6 billion dollars was allotted to the Tehran-Mashhad express train project - the largest project they have in hand – and to seven steel and petrochemical projects in the city of Masjed Soleiman, southwestern Iran, as well.