worth of bonds on sale Saturday in an effort to raise the capital needed to push forward the development of the South Pars gasfield.
The sale is a sign of the inability of the Islamic Republic to raise capital internationally.
The government will undoubtedly announce that all the rial bonds have been gobbled up speedily by the Iranian public regardless of the actual outcome of the sale.
The bonds are priced as low as 2 million rials ($185) in an effort to make them appealing to the general public much as the United States marketed Victory Bonds to the US public during World War II, when bonds were priced as low as $25 (in 1940s dollars).
The bonds, which mature in four years, are being marketed across the country at 262 branches of Bank Tajarat. They carry an annual interest rate of 17 percent, which is less than the current officially published inflation rate of 19 percent.