Tehran, Iran, August 28
By Mehdi Sepahvand – Trend:
Iran’s liquidity stood at $340 billion as of June 20, a new report says.
The number indicates a rise of 29.7 percent year on year, ISNA news agency reported August 28.
The liquidity for the same period just before Hassan Rouhani rose to presidency in 2013 had been $151 billion.
The current number comes at a time when various businesses in Iran have serious problems for procuring their working capitals.
In the meantime, banks have issued $135 billion facilities for enterprises, which counts for part of the liquidity rise.
The government also cites the dumping of the legal assets of banks from 13 to 11 percent as well as the registration of a number of newly founded banks and credit institutes as each having contributed to the situation.
The Iranian government recently settled 740 trillion rials ($23.7 billion, at 31,180 rials per USD) of its debts by converting the assets of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) in foreign currencies into the rial.
450 trillion rials of the sum went into settling government debts to banks, while the remaining 290 trillion rials went into settling part of the debts owed to foreign currency creditors, marked off for conversion surplus from foreign sources that have not been received (such as frozen or confiscated assets of the CBI), or allocated for fixing currency rates.
A report from late 2015 put the government’s debts at 2500 to 3000 trillion rials. The government’s debt grew very rapidly during the administration of former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Inflation soared beyond 40 percent before the Rouhani administration. Now it stands at a little less than 10 percent.