Iran's Agri Bank Will Lend $4.6b by March

Bank Keshavarzi Iran, the state-owned lender to the agriculture sector, plans to lend 520 trillion rials ($4.6 billion) to agriculture projects by next March, the bank CEO said. 
Speaking to the press on the occasion marking the annual Government Week (Aug. 23-29), Rouhollah Khodarahmi said the lender has paid 118 trillion rials ($1 billion) since the beginning of the current fiscal year (March 20). 
Khodarahmi pointed to government plans to allocate $1.5 billion for rural development projects, saying 44.8 trillion rials of this amount has already been paid.