Azerbaijan, Baku, Jun.19/ Trend R.Zamanov
Iran has approved 54 million dollars' worth of projects to absorb foreign investment, Deputy Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs Behrouz Alishiri said on Tuesday.
Eight industrial projects have been approved, the IRNA News Agency quoted Alishiri as saying.
Implementation of these projects will lead to creating job opportunities, improvement of the quality of the Iranian-made products, enhancement of the country's technology and boosting exports, he explained.
Alishiri said on May 31 that Iran absorbed 4.850 billion dollars of foreign investment in the previous calendar year.
The amount of foreign investment in Iran reached its peak in the previous calendar year, the IRNA News agency quoted Alishiri as saying.
Iran had absorbed 4.6 billion dollars of foreign investment in 2011, he added.
Alishiri had previously said that Iran needs around $1.3 trillion to materialise objectives of its fifth five-year economic development plan and attain an eight per cent economic growth rate. To achieve this, an annual sum of $300 billion should be invested, he added.
Some $7 billion worth of foreign investment plans have been approved in the current year he said, adding that foreign investments in Iran have grown by 150 per cent during the past four years.
Iran's fifth five-year economic development plan ends in 2015.
According to the International Monetary Fund, Iran's economy contracted by 1.9 per cent in 2012 and is expected to shrink by 1.3 per cent this year as it reels from the impact of Western sanctions.
The economy of the Islamic republic is however, forecast to grow next year by 1.1 per cent, the IMF said in its annual World Economic Outlook.
The IMF said the 'the macroeconomic environment is likely to remain difficult given the sharp depreciation of the currency and adverse external conditions which would sustain inflation at relatively high levels'.
A Western ban on Iranian oil exports which came into effect in July, hit the country's economy badly.