CBI: Banks To Become More Capable In Granting Facilities

Tehran, Oct 8, IRNA – Governor of the Central Bank of Iran Valiollah Seif presented a statistical report to parliamentarians at the Islamic Consultative Assembly on Tuesday and said capability of the banks in granting facilities will be enhanced. Speaking at a joint session of Majlis and government, Seif explained CBI policies in the past year and said the economy in the first half of the last calendar year experienced a special condition with regard to the inflation rate, hard currency market and economic growth. High inflation rate, economic recession and turbulent hard currency market all made predictions for economic development hard and greatly increased decision-making risks. Revision of monetary policies particularly bank interest rates and elucidation of Central Bank credit priorities for the banking network led resources towards productive activities, he said. He added that the main approach of the Central Bank was focused on circulating capital which was reflected in the regulation of credit policies of the package for coming out of economic recession. Referring to the outcome of the said approach, he said the point to point rate of inflation and the average rate for 12 months were 14.4% and 21.1% respectively in the month of Shahrivar (August/September) this year whereas the same figures for the year 2013 were 45.1% and 40.4% respectively. Seif pointed to the remarkable increase (47.3%) in crude oil income and said it played a determining role in the improvement of hard currency provision and in importation of the required raw materials. He further remarked that not only the volume of grants by the banks in the first five months of the current year (started March 21) had an outstanding increase compared to the same year last year (40.5%) but the share of circulating capital in the grants increased from 47.1% to 59.3%./end