Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 23
By Fatih Karimov – Trend:
Some 1,174 billion rials (about $34 million based on official rate of 34,300 rials per each USD) of Iranian government companies’ shares were sold during the first seven months of the current Iranian fiscal year (started March 20, 2017).
Some 102 billion rials of the shares were transferred to the private sector in the stock market, Iranian Privatization Organization (IPO) said in its latest monthly report.
Also, 1,072 billion rials of shares were sold through tenders.
Through privatization of governmental companies, Iranian government seeks to restructure the country's economy and reduce the government's expenses by promoting the private sector.
Increasing productivity levels at large enterprises is also among the main objectives of selling the shares of governmental companies.
Iran plans to privatize some 337 state-run companies by March 2018.
Since the Privatization Organization was launched in 2001, it has privatized 1,440 trillion rials of governmental shares.
During the last fiscal year (ended March 2017), 49,075 billion rials of government companies’ shares were sold to the private sector.