Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 8
By Umid Niayesh - Trend:
Iranian government spokesman Mohammad Bagher Nobakht said that the Islamic Republic's budget bill for the next Iranian fiscal year (to start on March 21, 2015) has envisaged an economic growth at 2.5 percent.
Nobakht said that the inflation rate is expected to decline to 14 percent in the next Iranian fiscal year, the official IRIB news agency reported Dec. 8.
The remarks were made when he was outlining the characteristics of the Islamic Republic's budget bill that was submitted to Parliament on Dec. 7.
Earlier Nobakht said that the country's economic growth is expected to reach 2 percent by the end of the current fiscal year (March 20, 2015), while according to the International Monetary Fund Iran 's economic growth rate will hit 1.5 percent in the current year.
Iran's economic growth comes after two years of stagflation.
Nobakht also forecasted that investment rate in the country will increase by 4 percent next year and that tax incomes have been predicted to increase by 21.8 percent in next year's budget. The country will not increase the cash subsidies from the current level of 455,000 rials(about $16.9 based on official rate of 26,935 rials/USD) per each person in next year, he added.
Iran's budget bill for the next fiscal year has envisaged that the government will acquire 480 trillion rials (about $14 billion) in revenues through the implementation of the subsidy reform plan.
Iran's subsidy reform plan is aimed at easing the pressure on state finances by cutting tens of billions of dollars from government subsidies on food and fuel. The government pays cash to citizens as compensation for increased prices by cutting subsides.
The proposed national budget for next fiscal year amounts about 8.379 quadrillion rials (about $311 billion based on the official exchange rate of 26,930 rials), 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.
The funding for running the government was set at 2.673 quadrillion rials (about $99 billion).
The administration also has allocated 461 trillion rials( about $17.17 billion) for development projects in the next year's budget.
Umid Niayesh is Trend Agency's staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @UmidNiayesh