Azerbaijan, Baku, Sep.22/ Trend F.Karimov/
The National Development Fund (NDF) of Iran will provide Iranian investors - who have foreign partners - with financial facilities, IRNA quoted Iranian Deputy Economy Minister Behrouz Alishiri as saying.
The decision has been made to diversify sources of finance and encourage businessmen for more investment, he added.
The financial facilities will be given to Iranian companies, if their foreign partner holds a minimum 40 percent share in their joint venture, Alishiri said.
On September 16, the Tasnim News agency quoted the administration's speaker Mohammad Baqer Nobakht as saying that the NDF holds over $50 billion.
"I have not received exact data on the value of the fund's assets, but it is certainly over $50 billion," Nobakht said.
According to the fifth five-year national development plan (2010-2015), 20 percent of oil revenues should be deposited to the fund. But, legislation has added six percent to the figure. We should not deposit the six-percent added sum to the fund. Instead, we should use that just in production projects, he noted.
Assets of Iran's National Development Fund will increase by over $8 billion in the current Iranian calendar year to reach $61 billion, the NDF deputy director said.Qasem Hosseini said the figure represents the worst case projection.
If the projected oil revenues are earned, the fund's assets will hit $61 billion by the end of the year, Hosseini said.
The current Iranian calendar year began on March 21, 2013. The NDF assets amounted to $49.9 billion in the last Iranian calendar year, he said.