<p dir="LTR"><span>Financial Tribune- Banks doled out 2.2 quadrillion rials ($73.2 billion) in loans during the first half of the Iranian fiscal year that ended September 21, marking 45.4% growth compared to the same period last year.</span></p> <p dir="LTR"><span>Data released by the Central Bank of Iran shows that the total number of loan recipients reached 3.6 million during the six months.</span></p> <p dir="LTR"><span>Regarding the purposes of lending, the CBI notes that about 65% of the loans were for meeting the needs of businesses for working capital. Business start-up loans were the reason for 8.5% of the total lending in the period, the CBI website reported on Sunday.</span></p> <p dir="LTR"><span>Services sector solely took out 41% of the loans during the six-month period. Banking system extended credit to more than 1.8 million firms in the services category.</span></p> <p dir="LTR"><span>Numbers also show that 28% of the loans were offered to “industries and mining” sector. Banks paid 653 trillion rials to 140,000 industrial units in the half-year period.</span></p> <p dir="LTR"><span>Housing and construction sector accounted for 9.6% of the total credits.</span></p>