Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan.7
By Fatih Karimov - Trend: Despite a decrease in the Iranian administration's current budget, the national budget bill has increased the development budget allocated to provinces by 21 per cent, IRNA quoted spokesman of Iran's administration, Mohammad-Baqer Nobakht as saying on Nov. 7.
In the calendar year 1390 (March 2011-March 2012), the economic growth was about 3 percent, but in years 1391 and 1392, the economic growth rate was negative, he added.
The national economy contracted 5.8 percent in the past Iranian calendar year 1391 (ended on March 20, 2013), he further said.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Nov. 26 that his government plans to reduce the inflation rate to below 25 per cent by the end of the Iranian calendar year 1393 (March 20, 2015).
"The inflation rate is projected to be 35 percent at the end of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20, 2014)," IRNA quoted Rouhani as saying.
On Dec. 8, Rouhani presented the administration's draft of the national budget bill for the Iranian calendar year 1393, which starts on March 21, 2014, to the parliament.
The proposed national budget amounts to about 7.83 quadrillion rials (about $315 billion based on the official exchange rate of 24,850 rials), an 8.4 percent rise year on year.
Next year's national budget is based on an oil price of $100 per barrel and a projected average exchange rate of 26,000 rials to the U.S. dollar for the fiscal year.
The funding for running the government increased by 240 trillion rials (about $9.6 billion) and was set at 1.95 quadrillion rials (about $78.4 billion).