TEHRAN – Iran’s Ministry of Industry, Mining and Trade’s data show that 101.941 trillion rials (over $2.42 billion) has been paid to production units as part of a program for supporting domestic production during the first 10 months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20, 2020-January 19, 2021).

The mentioned payments were made to 3,439 production units.

As reported, under the framework of this program dubbed “facilities for production and employment”, bank facilities are offered to newly established production units or semi-finished industrial projects with over 60 percent of physical progress.

Based on the mentioned program, 201.299 trillion rials of facilities (about $4.79 billion) have been planned to be paid to production units to support domestic production and maintain or create job opportunities.

Part of the said figure is provided by the National Development Fund (NDF) and part of it is supplied by the banking system. So far, a total of 110.4 trillion rials (about $2.6 billion) of capital has been provided by NDF and the country’s banks for the mentioned program.

Following a major plan for developing the country’s production under the frameworks of the resilient economy, the government has defined several projects with the aim of creating 1,032,962 job opportunities.

In this regard, the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) has put supporting production on the agenda as a major plan over the past two years and CBI Governor Abdolnaser Hemmati has constantly stressed that supporting production units to flourish production is the priority of the country’s banking system.

Industry Ministry had previously announced that over 335.77 trillion rials (nearly $7.99 billion) was paid to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and semi-finished industrial projects during the previous Iranian calendar year (ended on March 19, 2020).

The mentioned payments were made in the form of 20,930 bank loans to various projects and production units.

EF/MA