Russia announced on Monday that the required preparations have been made for granting a major state loan worth $5 billion to Iran.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Storchak has been quoted by the media in Moscow as saying that the legal barriers for granting the loan to Tehran have been removed.

Storchak added that the preliminary agreements over the move were reached during the visit to Tehran by Russia’s President Vladimir Putin in November 2015.

“Contradictions in the intergovernmental loan have been removed. I saw my [Iranian] colleague here in Washington, and he said that we’re preparing clean texts. We’ll sign them as soon as the decision is made by the authorities,” the official has been quoted as telling journalists by Sputnik news agency.

Putin said last November that Moscow is ready to provide a $5 billion state loan to Tehran to promote industrial cooperation. Another ‎€2 billion export loan will be granted to Iran by Russian state lender Vnesheconombank, according to RT.com.

During the visit to Tehran by the Russian president, the two countries selected 35 priority projects in energy, port facilities, and railway electrification.

On the same front, Russian Railways signed a contract to electrify 495 kilometers of railway in Iran worth ‎€1.2 billion. The three-year project will include building 32 stations and 95 tunnels.

Earlier, Russia’s Industry and Trade Minister Denis Manturov said last December that the loan would be provided under the Iranian government’s guarantee.

“We are talking about granting a state loan, naturally under the Iranian government’s guarantee…I think that if all the formalities can be agreed upon in the first quarter of next year (2016), then next year part of it may be provided,” he said as reported by Sputnik.