MRC Takes Issue With Gov't Divestiture Policy

In a review of the budget bill for the next fiscal year (2021-22), the Mjalis Research Center gaged the projected government revenue from divesting assets and its planned divestiture policy. 
It rejected the government approach to sell assets via exchange-traded funds. Referring to the failed "ETF method" in selling government assets in the current fiscal year, the parliament’s research center said there are many drawbacks in this divestiture approach, which also is at odds with “claims about privatization and downsizing the government”.  
The potential for disrupting the stock market, lack of appropriate market making, wide gaps between the value of ETF units displayed on bulletin boards of the Tehran bourse  and the their Net Asset Value (NAV) are some lessons the government must learn from lunching the ETF initiative, it said.