Iran government to deposit $15b of oil revenues

The amount will constitute “30% of the total oil incomes” and will be sent to the sovereign wealth fund as part of measures devised in the Sixth Five-Year Development Plan (2017-22), Mohammad Baqer Nobakht said.

The official noted that looking ahead is one of the most important approaches of Resistance Economy and plays a pivotal role in developing exports.

“That is why the fund will be deposited in the national development fund,” he added.

Resistance Economy is a set of principles aimed at curbing the economy’s dependence on oil revenues, improving productivity and reducing the government’s role in the economy.

It was first raised by the Leader of Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei in 2011 and he has designated the current year after “Resistance Economy: Production and Employment” in his New Year message on March 20.

According to the spokesman for the administration of President Hassan Rouhani who begins his second tenure with a high-level inauguration ceremony on Saturday, the Resistance Economy Headquarters’ meeting of top-tier officials discussed how the $15 billion will be spent “to support non-oil exports”.

Nobakht noted that another talking point in the meeting was how rial and foreign exchange loans using the money will be allocated.

“Fortunately, the board of directors of NDFI set out preferential interest rates on the loans that are to be handed out for non-oil exports in industries and agriculture,” he said.

If Iran’s sovereign wealth fund, which currently holds $91 billion, has not increased substantially, critics blame it on the government’s propensity to spend the fund on one project or the other.

The spokesman concluded by saying that the fund allocates loans at much lower interest rates than the banking system, so the meeting discussed ways of paying the difference from the budget so that the loans would come out cheaper.

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