Azernews.Az

The Iranian administration and the parliament agreed on issuing bonds worth 50 trillion rials (about $2 billion based on official rate of 24,800 rials per each USD) in the current Iranian year to finance development projects.

Ex-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sold foreign currency bonds worth $1.5 billion and 40,000 billion rials (approximately $1.61 billion) to finance the South Pars gas field's development projects, IRIB reported.

The pay-out time for the foreign currency bonds has now arrived and the national currency bonds` profit pay-out time will arrive in a few months.

Considering the decrease of foreign investments in Iran due to international sanctions as well as increase of liquidity, Ahmadinejad`s administration issued 13.7 trillion rials (some $950 million) in bonds in 2011, but just $250 million of the bonds were sold.

Iran refers to the low interest rate as the main reason for the small public demand in the bonds which held 17 per cent in profit. So the Central Bank increased the interest rate to 20 per cent in February 2012.