Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec.19
By Fatih Karimov - Trend:
The Iranian administration plans to reduce bank interest rates, the country's Finance and Economic Affairs Minister Ali Tayyebnia said.
He said the issue is being discussed by the cabinet of ministers, Iran's IRNA news agency reported on Dec. 19.
Considering that the inflation rate has decreased from 40 percent to 17 percent, it s expected naturally that bank interest rates to be decreased, as well, he added.
Previously, the Money and Credit Council decided to lower interest rates to 22 percent for one-year deposits, he noted.
Iran's Central Bank head Valiollah Seif has said that the country should focus on lowering the inflation rate to keep the bank interest rates low to resolve bank's problems.
"It's wrong to keep interest rates high due to high inflation rate. The situation in Iran was abnormal, but we are getting better and with low inflation the bank interest rate should decrease more," he said.
The amount of bad loans in Iran is about $27 billion, while Central Bank of Iran supervisory chief Hamid Tehranfar said on Sep.23 that the national banks owned and operated 500-600 companies, valued at about $70 billion by the end of the last fiscal year, which is 48-49 percent of their total base capital.
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