Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan.30
By Temkin Jafarov, Fatih Karimov - Trend:
Iran's Economy and Finance Minister says that Tehran's Stock market was stable over the past week, despite the drop in the main index during 2014.
After declining 22 percent in 2014, the Tehran Stock Exchange main index (TEPIX) dropped another 535 points, or 0.8 percent day-to-day on Jan. 21 and stood at 65,028 points. It has since regained a bit of ground, reaching 65,256 points on Jan 28.
Ali Tayebnia told Trend Jan.29 that the stock market is stable due to some measures that have been taken.
The Economy and Finance Minister said, "a series of decisions have been taken over the past year and were planned to be implemented. These had negative effects on the capital market. Of course, the declining oil price also had an effect."
Tayyebnia said, "we took positive measures over the past two weeks regarding systematic risks in the capital market. Particularly, we took measures to resolve problems in the petrochemical and refining, iron and steel industries. It is hoped that the market will be stabilized. The market was stable over the past week. This is a good sign of returning stability to the market," the minister said.
The latest report by the World Bank, released Jan.29, estimated that Iran's oil export revenues would declines to $23 billion in 2015 from its peak of $120 billion in 2011/12.
Of course, Iran's oil exports decreased from 2.2 million barrels per day (mb/d) in 2011, before imposing western sanctions, to 1.24 mb/d in 2014. However, the price of oil has dropped by 60 percent during 2015, compared to 2011.
The World Bank says if Iran and P5+1 (the United Nations Security Council and Germany) couldn't reach a comprehensive deal to lift bans on Iran's oil exports, the country's GDP growth would decrease from 1.5 percent in 2012 to zero in 2015 and the economy would continue to shrink.
Edited by CN