Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 17
By Umid Niayesh - Trend:
Iranian parliament which is discussing budget details for the next fiscal year (to start on March 21, 2015) has opposed privatization of the country's gas refineries.
The parliament rejected the budget's article which envisaged selling the refineries to private sector and transferring its incomes to the treasury, Iran's official IRNA news agency reported Feb. 17.
The Iranian government has envisioned a large privatization program in the Fifth Five-Year Development Plan (2010-2015), aiming to privatize about 20 percent of state-owned firms each year.
Mohhamad Mehdi Mofatteh, the spokesman for Iranian parliamentary commission on budget review said that privatization has its own procedure and would not be materialized via annual budgets.
He emphasized that privatization of the refineries within a year is not possible.
The parliament earlier approved the general outlines of the national budget bill for the next Iranian fiscal year.
The national budget amounts about 8.24 quadrillion rials (about $294 billion), a 4 percent rise year on year. Next year's national budget bill is based on an oil price of $72 per barrel and a projected average exchange rate of 28,500 rials to the US dollar for the fiscal year.
The funding for running the government was set at 2.67 quadrillion rials (about $93.7 billion).
The budget bill envisages economic growth at 5.2 percent and an inflation rate of 14 percent for the next Iranian fiscal year.
About $24 billion in oil revenues is forecasted for the next fiscal year.
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