Azerbaijan, Baku, Apr. 17/ Trend F.Milad/
Privatization of stat-run entities will be accelerated in the current calendar year, which began on March 20, deputy head of the Iranian Privatization Organization announced Abolqasem Shamsi Jamkhaneh said on Tuesday.
Abolqasem Shamsi Jamkhaneh told Fars news agency that 3-7 percent of shares of Bandar Abbas Refinery, 5 percent of shares of Tehran and Shiraz refineries and 50.5 percent of Khouzestan Steel Company will be divested in the near future.
Some 850 trillion rials ($76 billion) of shares of state-run entities were transferred to the private sector last year, most of which related to the Oil Ministry, Mehr news agency said.
Some 118 trillion rials (around $10 billion) of the Iranian government's equities will be transferred to domestic banks on the stock market through holding tenders, Shamsi Jamkhaneh said on March 6.
He added that the shares of state-run entities will be divested by the end of the first half of the current calendar year (September 22).
Iran has privatized up to 500 companies for the last six years.