Baku, Azerbaijan, May 24
By Fatih Karimov - Trend:
Iran is eyeing to receive about $2 billion of credit from World Bank, said Mohsen Jalalpour, head of Iran's Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture.
"If we use the existing capacity, we can obtain some $1-1.5 billion in loans from the World Bank for small and medium businesses," Jalalpour said, IRNA news agency reported May 24.
He made the remarks after a meeting with the WB experts in Tehran.
A report on the current state of Iran's industrial units was presented to the experts at the meeting, Jalalpour said, adding the parties will continue the talks on the issue.
Despite that the international sanctions against Tehran were removed in January this year, the WB still keeps its distance from Iran.
The WB stopped all the new projects in Iran in 2005 in compliance with the international sanctions imposed over Iran's nuclear program.
"We are following the situation very closely... we don't have any specific plans yet," the World Bank President Jim Yong Kim commented on the issue last month.
On the other hand, despite that the nuclear-related sanctions against Iran have been removed, the sanctions applied by the largest World Bank shareholder, the United States, over the alleged support for terrorism and human rights violations remain in place.