Azerbaijan, Baku, May.14/ Trend F.Karimov/
The Iranian administration has approved offering three trillion rials (about $245 million) to the banking system to be paid as marriage loans, ISNA quoted sports and youth minister Mohammad Abbasi as saying.
"Thirty per cent of couples who had registered to receive marriage loans in the past Iranian calendar year have not yet received them," he added.
The young population of the country between 15 and 29 years of age, should be specially supported regarding social issues such as marriage, employment and housing, the minister said.
The director of Iran's Census Bureau, Ali Akbar Mahzun has said that marriage in Iran's rural areas and villages had dropped by 39.5 per cent compared to last year.
"A 23.9 per cent decrease in marriages was recorded in Kerman province, 18.9 per cent in Yazd and 13.9 in Hormozgan," he said.
In total, he said that 726,390 marriages were recorded in the past Iranian calendar year (March 2012-March 2013), with 136,216 of them in rural areas.
Mahzun added that in urban areas the growth of marriage has gone up by 1.8 per cent compared to last year.
"Overall compared to last year, marriage in the country has declined by 9.7 per cent," he noted.
Speaking of divorces, Mahzun said on average each month about 11,000 divorces were recorded resulting in a 6.7 per cent overall decline this year, compared to the previous one.
"Divorce mainly involved men aged 25-29 and women aged 20-24," he said.
Mahzun added that in the first 11 months of this current year 121,000 divorces were recorded, with 109, 649 of them in urban areas.
Speaking of the highest divorce rate in the rural areas, Mahzun said the Zanjan province of Iran accounted to 14.3 per cent, Elam province - 13.4 per cent and South Khorasan - 12.7 per cent.