Data related to the performance of the National Development Fund of Iran must available to the public because resources of this sovereign fund belong to all Iranians, head of the NDFI board of directors said.
“I have asked my colleagues to interact with the media and [regularly] inform the public of developments at the fund. Since NDFI resources belong to every single Iranian, information regarding these resources and how to access them must not be the privilege of a selected few,” Mehdi Qazanfari said in a rare statement reported by IBENA.
Qazanfari added that NDFI authorities are taking measures to improve transparency on the ways and means of the fund.
“Now it is possible to track online the currency and rial reserves the fund holds at the Central Bank of Iran. Key data is accessible to NDFI managers, officials of [state/government] organizations and the public at large.”
The NDFI sends reports to the president, the parliament speaker and the judiciary head for scrutiny and to see where the resources (loans and credit) are headed, he said.
NDFI is independent of the government and was set up in 2011 to curb dependency on oil export and save a percentage of the energy export earnings for future generations. It lends to the nongovernment public sector, private firms and cooperatives when government revenues are low. It reportedly manages $139 billion.
The fund says so far it given $110 billion loans to the government and private companies, which was 79% of its resources. Almost $74 billion went to the government and private firms borrowed the rest.
The fund holds $29 billion or 21% of its resources in cash.
Due to shrinking oil revenues arising from the US sanctions, input into the fund has declined and the government has been increasingly tapping into NDFI resources in recent years to plug its deepening budget holes.
With average 0.5% interest during its lending years, the NDFI said it generated $7 billion in operating profit and has said henceforth it wants to invest in domestic and foreign financial markets instead of only giving loans.
Outlining some investment targets, the NDFI recently said it is looking closely at startups and knowledge-based companies.
The fund also intends to “concentrate on infrastructure projects and sectors with high returns and low risk”.
Among activities the fund says it wants to refrain from are lending to government(s) running endless deficits, development projects enshrined in the national budget and involvement in businesses that compete with the private sector.
