Iranian Economy Minister Ali Tayyebnia is reportedly scheduled to attend a ceremony in Seoul over the coming weeks to ink an agreement on luring the country’s largest investment since the world removed nuclear sanctions on Tehran last January.
Under the expected agreement, South Korean entities would provide $13 billion worth of financing for development projects in the Islamic Republic.
A well-informed source familiar with the issue has told Iran’s Shargh newspaper that the sides have already agreed on 102 items of the deal and the talks are underway to conclude the two remaining items.
According to the report, KExim Bank is expected to provide $8 billion out of the total amount and Korea Trade Insurance Corporation (K-SURE) will allocate $5 billion to complete the deal.
About $1.7 billion is slated to be allocated to overhauling Esfahan Refinery and $3 billion will go to the Siraf condensate refinery.
In the meantime, some parts of finance will be allocated for building a modern hospital in Iran.
According to the government, Iran, in order to reduce the rising unemployment rate needs over $233 billion worth of investments. President Hassan Rouhahi earlier said that the country needs a permanent 8-percent GDP growth to create one million new jobs annually.
A recent study by the parliament’s research center suggests that Iranian unemployment rate would reach 16 percent by 2020 in an optimistic scenario. However, the report adds that the figure may hit 26 percent in a pessimistic scenario.
According to Iran’s statistical center, the country’s unemployment rate over the last fiscal year (starting March 20) stood at 12.4 percent with an estimated 2.2 million unemployed job seekers.
