Baku, Azerbaijan, May 30
By Fatih Karimov - Trend:
Iran has transferred over $940 million worth of state shares to the private sector in the first two months of the current year.
Mir-Ali Ashraf Abdollahpouri-Hosseini, Head of the Privation Organization of Iran, said Iran will privatize 186 state-run companies in the current Iranian calendar year, which started on March 21, the Fars News Agency reported on May 30.
He said that of the mentioned 186 companies, there are 27 huge companies, 76 large companies, 31 medium companies, and 31 companies of other sizes.
"Huge companies are those companies with the shares value of about $400 million and large companies are those with the shares value of about $40 million," the official explained.
USD official exchange rate is currently about 25,550 rials in Iran.
The government has envisioned a large privatization program in the Fifth Five-Year Development Plan (2010-2015), aiming to privatize about 20 percent of state-owned firms each year.
Under the present interpretation of the Article 44 of Iran's Constitution, hundreds of state-owned companies have been privatized.
Iranian parliament (Majlis) speaker Ali Larijani had said that transferring economic activities to the public will solve the unemployment problem.