Iran’s sovereign wealth fund plans to lend 20 trillion rials ($578 million at market exchange rate) to non-oil exporters, said the head of Iran’s Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture. Mohsen Jalalpour added that the National Development Fund of Iran is targeting a $10 billion increase in non-oil exports as a means of curbing Iran’s reliance on crude oil sales for its foreign exchange revenue. The sum will be lent at 16% as one year loans, officials decided late Saturday. Also, the fund will lend $1 billion in dollar-denominated loans at 6% to exporters of engineering services and buyers of Iranian goods, IRNA reported. The maturity on the dollar loans is unspecified. Iran’s non-oil exports of $3.7 billion outstripped its $2 billion of imports in the month ending April 19. NDFI wants to keep this momentum, though some argue that lesser imports point to low economic activity in Iran’s business sector and low consumer demand, rather than competitiveness of Iranian exports.
