September 01, 2017
Iran is loudly celebrating one of the country’s biggest credit line deals, a signing with South Korea’s Eximbank, saying it marks a new opening in attracting foreign investment.
The framework agreement between Iranian banks and Korea Eximbank was signed in Seoul Friday, under which the Korean side will provide an 8 billion euro ($9.4 billion) loan to finance projects by South Korean companies in Iran.
“The spell of the capital flow into Iran was broken,” the daily Sharq headlined on its front page, while the daily Shahrvand described it “Seoul’s golden loan to Tehran.”
“The 8 billion euro finance by the Koreans will break a big barrier. Those banks that were afraid of cooperating with Iran can now finance Iranian projects. It is expected that after the Korean banks, Japanese banks and later European banks will be more comfortable working with Iran,” the state news agency wrote.
The financial daily Jahan-e Sanat carried an article by the governor of the Central Bank, Valiollah Seif, saying the loan was a sign of the “return of global trust in Iran’s banking system.”
Korea Eximbank said it signed the agreement with three Iranian banks and will do so with nine others in the coming week to complete the agreement.
Seif said the loan will facilitate several development and production projects and it showed the international community was ready to restore “long-term” banking ties with Iran.
According to the objectives of the sixth five-year development plan (2016-21), $65 billion of foreign investment should be absorbed.
The deputy director of the foreign investment office, Akbar Qahremani, said, “This expected amount of investment includes $30 billion in finance, $20 billion in economic partnership and $15 billion in direct investment.”
“Capital is cowardly, so to speak, and it does not go where there is no security; this agreement represents the existence of security in the Iranian economy,” a member of the Tehran Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture, Abbas Argoon, told the state news agency Saturday.
Iran secured its first credit line for $10 billion from the Chinese in 2015 as nuclear negotiations between Tehran and a number of world countries neared a settlement.
