Azerbaijan, Baku, Dec.3/ Trend G.Mehdi/
Over 100,000 jobs have been created in Iran using the facilities of the National Development Fund (NDF), IRIB quoted the NDF managing director Mohammad-Reza Farzin as saying.
The NDF was established two years ago, he said, adding that the fund's assets are allocated to non-governmental entities, including the private, cooperative and public sectors. On Sunday, Farzin said the NDF has over $42.8 billion in cash.
He said that Iran transfers 20 per cent of its oil revenues to the National Development Fund.
He added that $11.5 billion of the sum had been allocated for supporting the private sector. Over $500 million will be also paid to support tourism, he noted.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that the National Development Fund's assets would hit $55 billion by the end of the current year.
According to the Fifth Five-Year Development Plan (2010-2015), the National Development Fund was established to transform oil and gas revenues to productive investment for future generations.
Iran plans to create 2.1 million jobs by the end of the current Iranian calendar year which ends on March 2013, but just 1.3 million jobs will likely be created, the Mehr News Agency quoted Davood Qaderi, a member of the Iranian High Council of Employment as saying.
The council approved 1.96 trillion rials (about $160 billion) towards job creation plans in the current year, he added.
Cooperatives, Labour, and Social Welfare Minister Abdolreza Sheikholeslami has said that the unemployment rate is planned to be cut to seven per cent by the end of the fifth socio-economic development plan (March 2016.)
To this end, 5.5 million new jobs should be created, he noted.
According to Sheikholeslami, Iran's High Council of Employment has approved allocating 45 trillion rials (some $37 billion) to job creation plans in the current calendar year.
First Vice President Mohammadreza Rahimi said that the administration of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has created jobs as much as twice that of the figure it had promised during the past two years.
Rahimi added that if non-Iranian workers leave the country, the jobless rate will not exceed one or two per cent.