“We intend to invest as much as we can in development sector in the next [Iranian calendar] year (starts on March 19, 2020), so we have increased the budget for this sector by 53 percent to achieve significant growth,” Mohammad Baqer Nobakht said on the sidelines of the 12th meeting of the budget headquarters on Monday.

Last week, Nobakht had announced that the government is going to allocate all revenues from oil sales to the development projects following structural reforms in the next Iranian calendar year’s budget bill.

According to the official, the revenues gained from elimination of hidden energy subsidies as well as increased tax incomes will replace oil revenues.

“This does not mean a rise in tax income; but by setting new tax bases and eliminating unnecessary exemptions at a time of economic warfare, more tax revenues will be provided,” he explained.

Back in September, Nobakht had announced that the government was going to submit the budget bill for the next Iranian calendar year to the parliament on December 6 as scheduled.

According to the official, this year, PBO has decided to send the information about the state-owned companies’ budget to the Majlis (Iranian parliament) a month earlier so that the parliament would have enough time to review it.

The members of the budget preparation committee at PBO are seriously working on the bill and while the views may differ in some areas, the consensus among all members will be the base for the final decision making, Nobakht said.

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The Tehran Metro, owned and operated by Tehran Urban and Suburban Railway, consists of 6 operational metro lines and an additional commuter rail line, with construction under way on three lines including west extension of line 4, line 6 and north and east extension of line 7.

As of July 2019, the length of operational lines has reached 229km, with 124 stations and 1,230 carriages in service.

Busy, cheap and clean, the Tehran Metro carries some 3 million passengers a day.

The post Tehran Metro to have 630 new carriages appeared first on Iran News Daily.

“Given the difficult times of sanctions, we will be losing a considerable amount of budget resources; therefore, it is necessary to make sure that the reforms in the budget structure for the next year will be able to cut down  direct dependency on oil revenues to zero,” Nobakht said.

He went on to add that even under normal circumstances, the country still needed to reduce its dependency on oil revenues.

“For the first time, we have taken an important step toward reforming the country’s budget structure,” he stressed.

Following the US’ unilateral withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal last year, US President Donald Trump’s administration went ahead with re-imposing sanction on Iran, targeting the country’s energy and banking sectors, and stepping up efforts to drive Iran’s oil revenues to zero.

In April, the White House announced its decision not to renew waivers that allow eight countries, including China, Greece, India, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Turkey, to buy Iranian oil without facing US sanctions.

Meanwhile, Iran says with or without waivers, the country’s oil exports will not fall to zero under any circumstances. At the same time, the country is making efforts to reduce its reliance on oil revenues and instead turn its focus on non-oil production and exports.

The post Iran to cut budget dependency on oil revenues to zero: Nobakht appeared first on Iran News Daily.