Iran's Housing Bank Gets Capital Boost in New Budget Bill

As part of the next year's budget bill submitted to the Majlis on Tuesday, fifty trillion rials ($446 million) will be allocated to Bank Maskan - the main housing bank – to help the government-owned bank increase its loans.  
Provisions B of Note 8 of the 2019-20 fiscal budget bill stipulates that Bank Maskan’s existing debt to the Central Bank of Iran (up to 50 trillion rials) will be transferred to the government and therefore considered as capital increase for the home lender.
The debt was incurred as part of CBI's credit to the bank to help fund the controversial Mehr Housing Project (aka  Maskan Mehr). The huge low-cost housing project, initiated by former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, took money from the central bank to the tune of 450 trillion rials ($4.4 billion). The money transfusion is said to be the largest of its kind by the government in post-revolutionary Iran.