TEHRAN, Oct 30: Iran has set up a $200 million credit line to encourage its engineering firms to help rebuild earthquake-shattered towns and roads in Pakistan, state television reported on Sunday.

“Iran will allocate $200 million to reconstruction and infrastructure in earthquake-hit parts of Pakistan, as a financing facility,” said Ali Saeedlou, Iran’s vice-president for executive affairs.

“Iran has asked its firms to carry out work that is needed in northern Pakistan,” he told a news conference in Islamabad.

Iran is also heavily involved in rebuilding Afghanistan’s roads and power plants, destroyed by two decades of war.

Saeedlou did not describe how this credit line would work, but usually an Iranian government fund pays directly for work undertaken. A bank in the beneficiary country then repays the Iranian fund at a low rate of interest.—Reuters