Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 2
By Rahim Zamanov - Trend:
Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar has halted the process of privatisation of two government-owned companies.
The National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Company and Manufacturing Support and Oil Products Procurement Company are the two mentioned, the Mehr News Agency reported.
According to Zanganeh, the government is not in favour of privatising the National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Company.
The managing director of the Manufacturing Support and Oil Products Procurement Company, Ezatollah Akbari, also said that the process of privatisation has been postponed to at least the next calendar year (begins March 21. 2014).
The European Union last week blacklisted the company.
Recent reports suggest that even the shares of some of the privatised petrochemical companies and refineries will return to the oil ministry.
It was reported on November 3 that Iran's Oil Ministry had the highest share of privatisation among eight Iranian ministries over the past eight years, with a 46.6 per cent share.
According to the Iranian Privatisation Organisation, the Education Ministry had the lowest amount of denationalisation, with just 0.01 per cent of the total privatisation, the Mehr News Agency reported.
According to the report, 1,493,542 billion rials, around $600 billion based on the US official exchange rate of 24,900 rials of state shares have been transferred since 2005, of which 694,259 billion rials, about $278 billion, have been related to the Oil Ministry.