TEHRAN (TCA) — China will provide a credit line of $10 billion to Iran for its infrastructure projects, Iran’s PressTV news agency reported on September 15.
The agreement was signed between China’s CITIC Group Corporation and a consortium of Iranian banks including Bank of Industry and Mine, Refah Bank, Parsian Bank, Bank Pasargad and Export Development Bank of Iran.
CITIC will provide loans to the Iranian banks to fund projects in energy, natural environment, transportation, and the management of water resources.
Valiollah Seif, the governor of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) who oversaw the signing of the agreement, was quoted by media as saying that the Iranian banks could start receiving loans from CITIC as early as October.
Seif emphasized that the CBI had shown “extensive flexibilities” toward CITIC in sealing the agreement. He added that this was based on the bank’s history of positive cooperation with the Islamic Republic without elaborating what those flexibilities constituted.
The Beijing-based CITIC Group Corporation, formerly the China International Trust and Investment Corporation, is a state-owned investment company established in 1979. It now owns 44 subsidiaries, including China CITIC Bank, CITIC Holding, CITIC Trust Co. and CITIC Merchant Co. Ltd in China, Hong Kong, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Iran media last September quoted a CITIC official as saying that the enterprise was considering to provide Iran with $10 billion of financing, mostly in the country’s steel, copper and coal projects.