Tehran, Iran, Sept.7
Trend:
Iran's knowledge-based companies and startups are being supported by various funds, the head of Export Development Bank of Iran Ali Saleh Abadi told Trend.
"Export of knowledge-based products is one of the most important issues in the country. Iran previously used to export raw materials but today there are buyers from developed countries that are interested in products of knowledge-based companies," he said.
"The bank provided advances to these companies with desirable interest rates .The Export Development Bank is following credit evaluation instead of depending on financial capacity of these companies. A special committee reviews the process of providing advances to these companies," he added.
"The bank also offers a 30-percent discount in its fees in addition to foreign currency services to the knowledge-based companies, alongside educational and expert consultations and seeks to create networking between companies," he noted.
"So far the bank has provided remarkable advances from its resources with interest rate discount to these companies. There are also sources from the National Development Fund and the Innovation and Prosperity Fund that will be combined with bank's financial sources to be provide support to companies," he added.
"We should use more capacities of Iran's Technology Development Fund. The bank would pay special attention to exports of knowledge based companies products in the current Iranian year (started March 21,2019) so their products will be more commercialized and exported in the upcoming year," he noted.
Ali Saleh Abadi also spoke about the reasons for lack of investment in venture funds.
"One of the biggest venture funds in the country is established by the Export Development Bank with 600 billion rials (about $14.2 million) capital by Tamadon Investment Bank for the knowledge-based companies," he added.
"More than 400 billion rials (about $9 million) investment from this venture fund for knowledge based companies which is among the funds with high revenues since it is the first fund that invest in this regards, the experience show the future of venture funds will be shaped by people's investment," he said.
"Some of these companies currently export their products and naturally their customs declaration proves the volume of exports , some companies do not have exports but have the potential for it, so we offer them advances, " he said.
"The startup companies should provide financial reports but currently it's not a necessity for these newcomer companies to have financial statements and we would use the Technology Fund to evaluate them and offer advances based on guarantee of the fund," he said.
