BAKU, Azerbaijan, August 11
By Elnur Baghishov – Trend:
Iranian government provides the highest volume of financial subsidies to energy sector compared to the world countries, Director of Iranian Productivity Association Hamid Kalantari said, Trend reports citing the association’s website.
According to Kalantari, Iran has provided $70 billion to energy subsidies in 2018. This is 15 percent of Iran's gross domestic product (GDP).
The director added that in comparison, Saudi Arabia provided $44 billion and China $43 billion as subsidies to the energy sector.
“These figures show that Iran has not taken necessary steps to manage energy consumption in the country,” he said.
Kalantari emphasized that Iran's gross domestic product is $450 billion, while this figure is about $1 trillion in Turkey, which is twice as much as in Iran.
"However, Turkey's energy consumption is one-third of Iran's, and these figures fully reflect the problem facing Iran in this area," he said.
The director noted that energy consumption in the housing sector in Iran is two times more than in the average in the world average, and the energy consumption in the industrial sector is 75 percent higher than the world average.
Kalantari stressed that some of these problems are due to the low cost of energy. In his words, the price of one cubic meter of natural gas in Iran is 1 cent, while the world price of one cubic meter of natural gas is 35 cents.