The agent bank of the housing sector has allocated more than $31 million worth of facilities to non-state applicants in distressed urban areas of Iran during the first half of the current fiscal year that ended on Sept. 22, a representative of the bank said.
From the beginning of the current fiscal in March until the end of the sixth month, the state-run Bank Maskan handed out 5,907 loans to distressed or unsustainable urban areas across the country.
"They amounted to about 4.36 trillion rials ($31.82 million)," Neda Kasra Kermanshahi, the head of Bank Maskan’s Lending Department, told HIBNA, the official news outlet of the lender.
According to the official, 1,202 of those loans worth about 2.17 trillion rials ($15.84 million) were handed out in the form of civil participation facilities to residential units located in distressed areas that are not part of the Mehr Housing Project.
"About 89 million rials ($650) of civil participation loans were allocated to Mehr units," she said.
The Mehr Housing Project was a massive initiative started by the administration of former president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, with the supposed aim of providing housing for the poor. About a decade since its inception, it has yet to be finished due to a myriad of issues from lack of funds to poor design.
As Kermanshahi said, Bank Maskan allocated 4,582 other loans worth about 2.14 trillion rials ($15.62 million) to distressed urban areas during the first half of the current year.
An additional 177 loans to Mehr projects rounded up all facilities handed out to distressed areas.
Based on the overall Urban Revitalization and Renovation Program devised by the administration of President Hassan Rouhani, Iran aims to revive 2,700 old and unsustainable neighborhoods over a decade's time.
By the end of the Sixth Five-Year Development Plan in 2022, the administration aims to renovate 1,334 distressed neighborhoods. Private sector participation is key to the realization of envisioned goals.
"In the past few years, one of the reasons that private sector investors have not entered distressed urban areas was their need for renovation facilities," Kermanshahi said, adding that Bank Maskan is now offering a number of such loans.
"Allocating supportive facilities to renovate distressed and unsustainable urban areas is one of the most important areas in which Bank Maskan currently performs," she said.
