$137m in Pandemic Loans Paid to Transportation Firms

Seventy percent of bailouts requested by transportation companies (road, air, rail and sea) hurt by the outbreak of coronavirus have been paid as of April 20. 
According to Mohsen Sadeqi, an official with the Ministry of Roads and Urban Development, out of 48,000 billion rials ($204 million) worth of loans requested by the transportation sector, 32,700 billion rials ($139 million), i.e., 70% of the total requested loans have been paid.
“Loans envisioned by the government for the transportation sector are divided into two parts: The first part of this support package has been paid to air and rail transportation sectors seriously hurt by the pandemic and the second package has been dedicated to road public transportation sector,” he was quoted as saying by Fars News Agency.  
Sadeqi noted that a total of 203,000 applications have been approved for receiving government-backed loans by transportation companies, of which 155,000 or 76% have reached the payment stage; the documents and collaterals of the rest are being processed.
“In the air transportation subsector, 29 applicants requested 25,530 billion rials [$108 million] worth of loans, of which 14 companies received more than 20,600 billion rials [$87 million], i.e., 80% of the overall requested loans,” he said. 
“In the rail transportation subsector, 59 applicants requested 9,200 billion rials [$39 million] worth of loans, of which 23 companies received 2,300 billion rials [$9.7 million], i.e., only 25% of the requested loans.”