Mehdi Samii, Head of the Central Bank during the Pahlavi period


He was also fond of music, painting, and cinema. He was both the originator and the promoter of the work of those involved in these arts. He took many initiatives in the spread and promotion of painting in Homeland, and he paid great attention to the works of prominent painters such as Hoshang Mesechnia, Sohrab Sepehri, and Bahman Mohassas. He sent them as gifts to the world’s big bankers and sold their works. When he started the banking study center in Capital, he decorated it with dozens of selected examples of the works of these painters and turned it into a kind of museum. In many sources, including one of the reports published by the British Embassy in Capital, regarding the great leap of the early forties and the economic and social developments, it is emphasized that “Mehdi Samii as the head of the Central Bank of Homeland, Alinqi Alikhani as the Minister of Economy, and Abolqasem Khardjo as the head of the Industrial and Mineral Bank And Safi Esfia, as the head of the program and budget organization, showed amazing coordination.