EghtesadOnline: Majlis Joint Commission, the body responsible for reviewing the budget bill before its final parliamentary ratification, has approved the inclusion of a clause in the fiscal 2018-19 budget that would see 500 trillion rials ($11.49 billion) of government arrears to private contractors to be cleared through a multilateral debt swap.

EghtesadOnline: In its latest analysis of the Iranian banking sector, Capital Intelligence, the international ratings agency, noted that the repayment of government arrears to banks and the private sector is an urgent priority for Iranian banks to lift their weak capital adequacy ratios and allow their financing capacity to improve.