Baku, Azerbaijan, May 10
By Fatih Karimov – Trend:
The Iranian banking system has paid 223.91 trillion rials ($6.9 billion based on official exchange rate of $1=32,450 rials) in loans during the first month of the current fiscal year (started March 20, 2017), the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) said.
The figure indicates a rise by 5.3 percent compared to the preceding year, according to the report.
The country’s banks paid 94.508 trillion rials to the service sector during the 1-month period.
Along with service sector, the highest amounts of loan have been paid to industry and mining (78.269 trillion rials), commerce (23.709 trillion rials), housing (13.785 trillion rials) and agriculture (13.576 trillion rials) sectors.
Iranian banking system paid 5,483.7 trillion rials of loans to various sectors during the last fiscal year (March 20, 2016-2017), 31.4 percent more than the previous year.
According to World Bank, Iran’s GDP growth stood at 6.4 percent in 2016, largely as a result of the oil sector bouncing back, both in production and exports, following the removal of sanctions in January 2016 through the nuclear deal.
The figure is expected to stand at 4 percent, 4.1 percent and 4.2 percent in 2017-2019 respectively.
Iran has been struggling with bad loans over the past several years.
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