Italian bank agrees to extend billion dollar credit
line to Iran
TEHRAN, June 29 (Wire Services) - An Italian commercial bank has
agreed in principle to extend a billion dollar credit line to Iran, Italian
sources said Tuesday.
The Mediocredito Centrale, which specialises in export credits, initialled
the preliminary agreement here Tuesday. The final accord is to be signed
shortly in Italy, the sources said.
Iran has been offered credit lines in the past from other Italian
banks to finance the purchase of Italian exports and a number of joint
industrial projects.
In September 1998 the Banca Commerciale Italiana announced that it
was opening a medium- and long-term credit line to Iran of one billion
dollars, plus 120 million dollars in the short term.
In July last year Mediobanca opened a credit line of 1.2 billion
dollars with six state-owned Iranian commercial banks.
Italian businessmen are particularly interested in petrochemicals,
telecommunications and metallurgy, as well as trade between small- and
medium-sized enterprises in the two countries.
Italy is Iran's second biggest European trade partner after Germany.
Trade between them amounted to 2.6 billion dollars in 1997, tilted in Iran's
favour. Italian exports were worth 870 million dollars, while it imported
1.8 billion dollars' worth of Iranian goods, mainly oil products.
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