Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 5
By Fatih Karimov - Trend:
Iranian MP Gholamreza Mesbahi Moqaddam has said that the national budget for the next fiscal year will certainly face deficit.
Mesbahi Moqaddam, who is a member of the Iranian parliament's budget and planning committee, added that the government's general budget has been envisaged to be 2.7 quadrillion rials (about $77 billion), but it will not certainly materialized, Iran's Mehr news agency reported.
The next year's budget bill has also envisaged that 310 trillion rials (about $9 billion) of bonds will be sold, but it will not happen either, he noted.
The bill has been prepared so that the national budget will be less dependent on oil revenues, he said, adding that oil income is predicted to hit 730 trillion rials (about $24 billion) next year.
Moqaddam said the actual oil income will be lower than projected.
In general, the national budget bill is not consistent with objectives of the resistance economy, he noted.
On Dec. 7, 2014, Iranian president Hassan Rouhani submitted the budget bill for the next Iranian fiscal year, which begins on March 21, 2015, to the parliament.
Rouhani said that the administration has taken necessary steps to decline negative effects of the oil price countdown.
He went on to say that about $24 billion of oil revenues is forecasted for next fiscal year, adding share of oil revenues in next year's budget bill has decreased to 31.5 percent compared to 45 percent of oil revenues in current year's budget.
He added that administration has planned to increase non-oil incomes in next fiscal year.
The proposed national budget amounts about 8.379 quadrillion rials (about $250 billion based on the free market exchange rate), a 4 percent rise year on year. Next year's national budget bill is based on an oil price of $72 per barrel and a projected average exchange rate of 28,500 rials to the U.S. dollar for the fiscal year.
On February 19, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei outlined the general policies of the economy of resistance. Reducing dependence on oil revenues and securing the provision of strategic foodstuffs and medicines are some of the objectives of the economy of resistance.