TEHRAN- Some 120 trillion rials (about $2.85 billion) of loans will be paid to the villagers in the current Iranian calendar year (March 2018-March 2019) in a bid to materialize stable employment in the rural areas, vice president for rural development and deprived areas announced.

Abolfazl Razavi said the loans will be secured from National Development Fund (NDF) and the banks, IRNA reported.

The Statistical Center of Iran has announced that 790,561 jobs have been created in the country during the past Iranian calendar year (ended on March 20).

The center reported that the number of employed people reached 23,378,613 people in the past year.

The statistical center also put the country’s unemployment rate at 12.1 percent, indicating 0.3 percent fall year on year.

Meanwhile, according to Razavi, some 210,000 jobs were created in the rural areas in the past year.

The official said the figure is tried to reach 300,000 in the current year.

Iran’s Sixth Five-Year National Development Plan (2016-2021) has envisaged creation of 384,000 jobs in rural areas per year, Razavi further announced.

MA