Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 16
By Fatih Karimov - Trend:
Khatam-ol Anbia Construction Headquarters, affiliated with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has made a suggestion to the administration to conduct mining exploration operations in the country.
Khatam-ol Anbia commander Brigadier General Ebadollah Abdollahi said that the headquarters is cooperating with the administration without any specific problems, Iran's Fars news agency reported on Dec. 16.
We believe that the expansion of mineral operations can help the country reduce dependence on oil revenues, he noted.
Khatam-ol Anbia has taken projects which require maximum 150 billion rials (about $4.5 million) investment, he noted.
Khatam-ol Anbia is a giant company with 25,000 employees. It controls over 812 registered companies inside and outside Iran. Some 10 percent of
the company's employees are IRGC members and the rest are contractors. The company is also connected to Iran's oil and gas industry.
The Iranian government has offered a 32.7 percent rise in defense expenditure in next year's budget bill (to start March 21, 2015) compared to current year's budget, most of which will be assigned to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).
IRGC budget has increased to 174 trillion rials (about $6.11 billion based on official rate of each USD at 28,500 rials in the budget bill), of that amount about 100 trillion rials (about $3.51 billion) is allocated to Khatam-ol Anbia, some 60 percent of IRGC's total budget for next year.
...