TEHRAN: A Chinese state-owned investment firm has provided a $10 billion credit line for Iranian banks, Iran’s central bank president said Saturday.
The contract was signed in Beijing between China’s CITIC investment group and a delegation of Iranian banks led by central bank president Valiollah Seif.
The Iran Daily said the funds would finance water, energy and transport projects.
Iran is vital to China’s trade ambitions as it develops its trillion-dollar “One Belt, One Road” strategy aimed at dramatically boosting its ties to Europe and Africa.
In addition to the credit line, the China Development Bank signed preliminary deals with Iran worth $15 billion for other infrastructure and production projects, Seif announced.
The contracts reflect “a strong will for continuation of cooperation between the two countries,” Seif said.
The credit line will use euros and yuan to help bypass US sanctions that have continued despite the nuclear deal between Iran and world powers in 2015.
China was a signatory to the deal that lifted sanctions in exchange for curbs to Iran’s nuclear program.
President Xi Jinping visited Iran a week after it came into effect, vowing to boost bilateral trade to $600 billion within a decade.
Although trade was just $31 billion in 2016, it has jumped more than 30 percent in the first six months of 2017.
China is already Iran’s biggest oil customer and accounts for a third of its overall trade.
Since the lifting of sanctions, Beijing has opened two credit lines worth $4.2 billion to build high-speed railway lines linking Tehran with Mashhad and Isfahan, Iran Daily reported.
The latest move follows an eight-billion-euro credit deal signed with South Korea’s Exim bank last month.
European banks remain wary of penalties from Washington for working with Iran, but talks are said to be at an advanced stage for $22 billion in credit deals with banks from Austria, Denmark and Germany.
China’s new $10 billion credit line will go to Iran’s Refah Kargaran, San’at va Ma’dan, Parsian, Pasargad and Tose’e Saderat banks.
China provides $10 billion credit line to Iran
China provides $10 billion credit line to Iran
US pump prices surge as Iran war upends global energy supply
- Fuel prices jump over 10 percent as oil prices surge
- Analysts predict further price rises due to market conditions
MARIETTA/NEW YORK : US retail gasoline and diesel prices are soaring as the US-Israel war with Iran constrains oil and fuel exports, which could be a political test for President Donald Trump’s Republican Party ahead of midterm elections in November.
Fuel prices jumped more than 10 percent this week as oil rose above $90 a barrel, its highest in years, adding pain at the pump for consumers already strained by inflation.
Trump on Thursday shrugged off higher gasoline prices in an interview with Reuters, saying “if they rise, they rise.”
The president had vowed to lower energy prices and unleash US oil and gas drilling during his second term, but much of his tenure has been marked by volatility and uncertainty amid shifts in policies like tariffs and geopolitical turmoil.
The US is the world’s largest oil producer. It is a major exporter but also imports millions of barrels a day since it is the world’s largest oil consumer.
As of Friday, the national average prices for regular gasoline stood at $3.32 a gallon, up 11 percent from a week ago and the highest since September 2024, according to data from the motorists association AAA. Diesel was at $4.33, up 15 percent from a week ago, surging to the highest since November 2023.
Midwest, south feel the pinch
US motorists in parts of the Midwest and the South, including states that supported Trump, have seen some of the steepest increases in fuel costs since the conflict in Iran started.
In Georgia, a swing state, average retail gasoline prices rose 40.1 cents a gallon over the past week, according to fuel tracking site GasBuddy.
Andrenna McDaniel, a health care insurance worker in South Fulton, Georgia, said she was surprised to see prices skyrocket overnight.
“They jumped up so quickly,” she said on Friday, adding that she does not agree with the war at all.
McDaniel, a Democrat, said that for now she is only driving for the most important things, and feels lucky that she works from home so she does not have to drive as much as other people do. Georgia voted for Donald Trump in the 2024 election.
Trump voter Richard Soule, 69, a US Air Force veteran and a retired firefighter, said a little pain at the pump is worth Trump’s efforts to protect America.
“When President Trump went in there and bombed out their nuclear, and they just thumbed their nose at it, I believe he did the right thing at the right time,” Soule said on Friday as he filled up his Ford F-150 truck in Marietta, Georgia.
Other states, including Indiana and West Virginia have seen prices rise by 44.3 cents and 43.9 cents, respectively.
Prices may rise further
More pain may be on the way, analysts said, as oil prices continue to trend upward. On Friday, US oil futures settled at $90.90 a barrel, up nearly $10 and the biggest single-day rise since April 2020.
“Given current market conditions, the national average price of gasoline could climb toward $3.50 to $3.70 per gallon in the coming days if oil continues rising and supply disruptions persist,” GasBuddy analyst Patrick De Haan said.
The disruptions in the Middle East and the Strait of Hormuz, a key trade conduit, have boosted demand for US oil abroad, which in turn has driven up prices for domestic refiners too.
“The US has weaned itself off of its dependence on Middle Eastern crude, but obviously Asian refineries, and to a lesser extent, European refineries have not,” Denton Cinquegrana, chief oil analyst with OPIS. “That’s what you’re seeing happen in the spot market, because the demand for US exports rise, and so the price rise.”
Seasonal factors could add further pressure. Gasoline prices typically go up in the spring and peak in the summer due to higher gasoline demand and production of summer-blend gasoline, which is more costly to produce. Diesel fuel saw an even more aggressive jump since Iran began retaliating against US and Israeli strikes, significantly disrupting shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
Global diesel inventories have remained in tight supply due to heavy demand for heating and power generation during a prolonged winter in the US and other parts of the world and a structural tightness of refining capacity. Sticker prices of everything from food to furniture go up when the cost of diesel goes up, as the fuel is mainly used in freight transportation, manufacturing, agriculture, and global shipping, analysts said.
“In a world where buzzword seems to be ‘affordability’, that is certainly not going to help,” Cinquegrana said.
