Iran takes steps to reduce reliance on oil incomes
By Sara Rajabova
A recent sharp decline in oil prices, as well as international sanctions have heavily hit the Iranian economy over the past years and therefore the government has been keen to devise ways in which to reduce its dependence on oil incomes.
The best way for decreasing reliance on oil incomes, as the Iranian government considers it, is the development of the non-oil sector.
Eshaq Jahangiri, Iran’s first vice president said the current administration is determined to downsize the state servants and replace oil revenues with non-oil exports and tax income.
He said the government is very serious when it comes to the post-sanctions era and it is determined not to let production be crippled again, Shana news agency reported.
Jahangiri said around 80 percent of the current expenditures of the budget are spent on paying state’s employees. With this in mind the administration has decided to streamline state mobility by downsizing it on the one hand and replacing oil revenues with non-oil exports and tax income on the other hand.
Although Iranian officials have called on reducing reliance on oil over the years, the steps taken in this regard have not been sufficient.
Iran planned to boost non-oil goods export to $40 billion (without counting gas condensate), but the figure only reached $35.8 billion last year.
The sanctions forced the country, which is heavily dependent on oil revenues, to increase efforts to boost the non-oil sector.
In 2014, Leader of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei outlined general policies to promote what he describes as resistance economy and called on the three branches of the Iranian government to implement them.
The economy of resistance is aimed at promoting knowledge-based economy and domestic production, especially in strategic products and services, slashing dependence on imports and oil revenues.
Recently, Iranian parliament's planning and budget commission called for boosting non-oil exports and to cut national economy's dependence on oil economy.
Esmail Jalili, a member of that commission said a report on non-oil exports was presented to the commission, adding the commission decided to provide required fund and facilities for the proper growth of the non-oil exports, IRNA news agency reported.
Jalili said the proper growth of the national economy is reliant on the growth of non-oil exports adding that necessary decisions were made by the parliament's planning and budget commission to that end.
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Sara Rajabova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on
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