TEHRAN – Central Bank of Iran (CBI) has agreed to a plan for allocating 50 percent of the bank deposits of the country’s free zones to the production units based in these zones, an official with Iran’s Free Zones High Council announced.

“The central bank has agreed to allocate 50 percent of the bank deposits in each zone to meet the financial needs of the production units in that zone, which would provide some of the support needed to finance the economic activities of the mentioned units,” IRIB quoted Ahmad Jamali as saying.

According to Jamali, the mentioned decision has been made in order to pave the way for the realization of the current year’s motto which is “Production: Support and the Elimination of Obstacles.”

Referring to some of the problems that the production units in free zones are currently facing, Jamali said: "The main concern of production units in these zones are related to order registration, customs, financing, issuing establishment and operating licenses."

“Based on the agreements we had with the Ministry of Industry, Mining and Trade, the Central Bank of Iran, the Islamic Republic of Iran Customs Administration (IRICA) and the Ministry of Economic Affairs, their problems and concerns should be resolved in near future,” the official added.

He further stressed that the Secretariat of the Iranian Free Zones High Council’s new approach is to focus on solving the problems of the private sector.

According to the official, the Free Zones High Council has started monitoring the country’s free zones to detect possible problems and issues in the way of materializing the year’s motto in order to eliminate them.

The official also underlined some of the concerns of the investors in the country’s free zones and noted that the council is communicating with the pertaining organizations and government bodies in order to address such concerns.

EF/MA