Baku, Azerbaijan, April 23
By Umid Niayesh - Trend:
Despite the demands of the Iranian officials, only 2.4 million citizens of the country voluntarily gave up on receiving cash subsidies.
The Spokesperson of the Iranian government, Mohammad Bagher Nobakht said that the administration will save some 12,000 billion rials( about $470 million based on official rate of 25,513 rials per each USD) from the withdrawals, Iran's State IRNN TV reported on April 23.
He also said that some 73 million Iranian citizens registered applicants for receiving cash subsidies, while the government expected 30 million people would not register for the offer.
On April 21, Iranian vice president for Executive Affairs Mohammad Shariatmadari said that the number of people who actually gave up receiving cash subsidies was not satisfactory.
"Only a small portion of people announced that their monthly income is more than 25 million rials," he added.
The subsidy registration website asked people to announce their monthly income if it is below 6 million rials, between 6 million and 10 million rials, between 10 million and 20 million rials, between 20 million and 25 million rials, or it is above 25 million rials.
Iranian media outlets reported that most of the registered applicants have announced that their income is less than 6 million rials per month.
The administration of former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad implemented the first stage of the subsidy reform plan toward the end of 2010 in an attempt to wean the country off food and fuel subsidies.
In the first stage the government paid 45,500 rials (about $18) to citizens to compensate for a partial cut of subsidies.
It is estimated that the government will acquire 480 trillion rials (about $19.3 billion) in the current Iranian calendar year (March 2014-March 2015) in revenues through the implementation of the second phase of the economic reform plan.
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