State Financial Support for Smartphone Production

The Central Bank of Iran and Post Bank of Iran, affiliated to ICT Ministry, will invest 2 trillion rials ($14.8 million) in the domestic production of smartphones to curb dependence on foreign suppliers.
On Tuesday, ICT Ministry, CBI and PBI, along with the domestic mobile operators Mobile Telecommunications Company of Iran and MTN-Irancell, signed a multilateral agreement to streamline the production of smartphones in Iran, the ministry's website reported. 
The two banks are to invest 1trillion rials ($7.4 million) each in the project.
Speaking at the signing ceremony, Information and Communications Technologies Minister Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi said preliminary studies show the initiative will yield over two million smartphones in two years. 
Jahromi said assuming an average price of 25 million rials ($186) for each handset, the domestic market value of the industry will exceed 50 trillion rials ($373 million) in two years.