Colse to 246 semi-finished government projects with 80% progress are set to be finalized by the end of the current Iranian year (ending March 21, 2015), vice-president for planning and strategic supervision announced on Tuesday.
Addressing a session on the process of ceding unfinished government projects to the private sector, Mohammad Baqer Nobakht asserted that a budget of 2,000 trillion rials ($75 billion) is needed to finance the completion of more than 2,900 unfinished projects, while the figure could amount to 4,000 trillion rials ($150 billion) considering possible delay.
Unfinished projects are one of the impediments in the way of the government's development agenda, and due to the limited government financial resources, caused by Western-led sanctions, "the priority would be given to projects with 80% progress," the vice president added.
He noted that by the end of the current year all the provincial projects inspected by the president will be inaugurated.
The Rouhani administration has inherited several semi-finished projects from Ahmadinejad administration which remain incomplete.
The administration has severely sought to minimize the impacts of sanctions and lead the country towards pre-determined development objectives of the Vision Plan (2025) through optimizing local facilities and utilizing existing resources without making the private sector shoulder the cost.
The government aims to decentralize economic decision-making by establishing regional and provincial investment companies. It also aims to cooperate with the private sector, which is able to assess the viability of further investments on unfinished projects, and supervise the process of allocating the required loans to investment companies.
"We aim to take the advantage of participation and cooperation of the private and cooperative sectors,” Nobakht said.
