Noting that “oil cannot be excluded from Iran’s economy,” government spokesperson, Mohammad Bagher Nobakht on Saturday called for efforts to lower the influence of oil in Iran’s annual budget.
“While some people blame oil revenues for crippling Iran’s economy, the importance of oil for Iran’s economic growth in the past century is undeniable,” Nobakht said addressing a national conference on productivity in Tehran, IRNA reported.
“The government’s annual revenues fell from $60 billion to $40 billion as a result of the recent shock in the global oil market,” he added.
Referring to resistance economy as a strategy that can help safeguard the economy against what he described as “foreign-led economic shock”, Nobakht said: “With a resistant economy, we can manage the country with $40 billion a year.”
Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei issued a decree on February 19, 2013, outlining the general policies of the resistance economy.
The decree encourages increased exports of electricity, gas, petrochemicals, and oil byproducts instead of crude oil and other raw materials, expansion of the production and exportation of knowledge-based products, increase in domestic production of strategic goods, and development of markets in neighboring countries.
Nobakht further pointed out that since Iran’s economy failed to achieve a 8.5% growth as envisioned in the fourth and fifth five-year economic development plans (FYDP), the economy “must grow by at least 12% during the sixth and seventh Five-Year Development Plans in order to achieve the objectives stated in the 20-Year Vision Plan.”
The 20-Year Vision Plan , also knows an the National Vision for year 2025, decreed by the Leader in 2005, calls on the government to pave the way to become a knowledge-based economy and the region’s top economic and technological power by 2025.
In a separate remark, the head of Iran’s Statistical Center, Adel Azar said “the envisaged 8% economic growth is possible only after creating a comprehensive statistical system.”
The five-year development plan is a medium-term economic roadmap designed by the Iranian government to achieve and sustainable growth.
Iran has designed and implemented several five-year economic plans following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, with a focus on private and public sector interactions.
Both the fourth FYDP (2006-2011) and the fifth FYDP (2011-2016) underscored a smaller government role in the economy, stressing on boosting privatization and a bigger role for market forces.
