Azernews.Az

The Iranian government said the sanctions were the major reason delaying the repayment of debts to the World Bank, which placed Iran's loans in the non-performing status.

Head of Tehran World Trade Center, Mohammad-Reza Sabzalipour told Trend previously that the World Bank said it was placing Iran's loans in non-performing status, as it must do when a country has not made any payments for more than half a year. Iran owed the bank $697 million on June 30, of which $79 million was overdue.

The government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been refusing to repay the debt for more than 6 months, and this, according to Sabzalipour, is a clear sign of mis-management.

Sabzalipour said the designation from the World Bank means that Iran may find it even harder to get money from commercial creditors. He also added that the issue would negatively affect Iran and Iranian businessmen's credit.

Sabzalipour noted that Iran never includes its foreign debts in its annual budget which leads in frequent delays in payments. The country's economic growth has fallen to its lowest rate due to the government's mismanagement.

Iranian Deputy Finance and Economic Affairs Minister Behrouz Alishiri yesterday blamed the Western sanctions and bank-transfer problems for the delay in of repayment.

Alishiri said Iran was to pay $29 million to the World Bank on January 15, and had the money trasferred to a third party bank, which in turn failed to transfer the money to the World Bank.

"The Iranian finance minister held a meeting with the deputy head of the World Bank on April 21. During the meeting Iran asked the World Bank to negotiate with the U.S. and other parties that have put the sanctions on Iran's banking system just to facilitate the money transfer," Alishiri said.

"The World Bank's finance director announced on June 4 that Washington has agreed to the transfer. After that, Tehran paid off some $10 million of its debts to the World Bank," he added.

He further said that Iran is ready to repay all its debts to the World Bank.

Iran's economy has contracted by 1.9 percent in 2012 and the country's economy is expected to shrink by 1.3 percent again in 2013, according to International Monetary Fund's forecasts.