Rouhani's Advisor Calls for Banks to Sell Assets

The Secretary of the Free Zones Coordination Council has called for banks to take action to sell their assets. According to IRNA, Akbar Turkan, the senior advisor to the President, considers this action to be aimed at boosting production and the economy of the country. Speaking on Wednesday night at the tenth provincial festival honoring top entrepreneurs in Mazandaran in Amol, Mr. Turkan added that the sale of bank assets is a legal solution to stimulate production and increase liquidity in the country. He stated that currently, about 50% of the country's liquidity is effectively trapped in the form of bank arrears, both overtly and covertly. Hassan Mansour, an economic expert residing in London, believes that some of these arrears, amounting to about 100 to 150 trillion tomans, have come from private individuals under government pressure for special loans—mandatory loans—that the banks and the government cannot enforce because these individuals are connected to high levels of the government. Additionally, about 100 trillion tomans are the government's debt to banks, which the government also cannot pay. As a result, these government bonds have become stagnant on the banks' balance sheets. Akbar Turkan also mentioned that there is currently a lack of demand in the country. He stated that stimulating demand and providing credit resources to the public could increase their purchasing power, emphasizing the need for credit sales and various stimulating methods to exit the current recession. He further noted that entrepreneurs are the real players in the country's economy and that appropriate solutions and accurate diagnostics to reduce the problems in this sector require inter-agency cooperation from other executive bodies at the provincial level.