TEHRAN – Iran’s deputy agricultural jihad minister for economic and planning affairs on Saturday announced that the country plans to attract some $500 million foreign investment in the agriculture sector in the current Iranian calendar year (ending March 20).

Sadeq Khalilian told Mehr News Agency that the figure will increase the country’s annual agricultural investment growth rate to 10 percent from the current 7 percent.
“In the current (Iranian) year some 70 trillion rials (about $7.55 billion) of banking loans will be earmarked for the agriculture sector and $1 billion will be allotted to the sector from the Foreign Exchange Reserves Fund,” the official noted.
The Fourth Five-Year Socioeconomic development plan targets the growth rate of 13.5 percent in agro sector which will hopefully be met next Iranian year (starting March 21).