Baku, Azerbaijan, June 9

By Farhad Daneshvar - Trend:

Iranian banks on average pay 4,100 billion rials (about $134.5 million according to official rate on June 9) to deposit account holders on daily basis, an Iranian official said.

Criticizing high rate of banking interests in the Islamic Republic, Mohammad Reza Najafi-Manesh, board member of Iranian House of Industry, Mine and Trade, said the banks annually pay over 1,500 trillion rials (about $49.2 billion) to deposit account holders in the country, Taadol, an Iranian economic newspaper, reported June 9.

Explaining that higher interest rates inflict harm to the industrial sector in Iran, he called for reducing the deposit interest rates.

Given the high rate of banking interests in Iran, it appears that people tend to keep their assets in deposit accounts, as banking interest rates are higher than the annual income from investment in the country's industrial sector.

According to Valiollah Seif, the governor of Iran's Central Bank, the interbank interest rate in the Islamic Republic of Iran has been set at 17 percent.

This is while, Iranian bankers in mid-February decided to cut the annual interest rate by 2 percent from 20 to 18 percent.