The problem with Chinese finance has been resolved and the two sides have agreed that China will open a line of credit for financing Iranian giant projects in the next 15 days, Chairman of joint Iran-China Chamber of Commerce said on Wednesday.
"At the moment, the amount of the finance is at least $36 billion," while it will surely be increased as agreed, said Asadollah Asgaroladi.
Earlier, a delegation from the Central Bank of Iran travelled to China to discuss the details of financing the projects by the Chinese side. China owes somewhere between €18 billion ($23.2 billion) to €22 ($28.3 billion) to Iran and has been committed to finance Iranian projects triple this amount, while between 15-20 percent of the finance is going to be paid by the central bank.
Once the credit line is opened, Asgaroladi predicted that Iran's current $44 billion trade with China will increase by 10 percent to be exceeding $50 billion.
He said the central bank will not have any excuse to further delay the process, as there are already 80 defined projects to be financed by China.
On September 10, President Hassan Rouhani and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping met in Dushanbe, Tajikistan discussing how Beijing would finance Iranian development projects.
China, the biggest oil importer from Iran, owes Tehran the money for its previous shipments, as announced earlier by Mohammad Baqer Nobakht, vice president for planning and strategic supervision.
The money had been stuck in Bank of Kunlun, which is a unit of the state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation, due to sanctions restricting bank transactions, said a Chinese analyst.
Vice President Es'haq Jhangiri had earlier said that the Chinese finance "will mainly be allocated to the private sector projects," as the government has recently adopted a new approach to support the private sector by providing them with cash flow through the capital market.
