Twenty-nine percent of Iran’s oil revenues has gone to the National Development Fund of Iran (NDFI) so for this year (starting March 21, 2014), according to the fund’s deputy for economic affairs.
“This is in line with what has been set in the law,” said Mohammad Saeed Nouri Naeeni on Sunday, as reported by IRNA. Under current laws, the government should deposit 20 percent of its revenue from oils sales to the NDFI, a percentage that is set to increase by three percent each year until the end of the 5th Five-year Economic Development Plan (2011-2015).
Since its establishment in 2011, the fund has amassed $67 billion in deposit, Nouri Naeeni said. The NDFI is aimed at allocating part of revenues from sales of oil, gas, gas condensate and oil products to infrastructural projects.
Nouri Naeeni said the fund is also aimed at curbing negative effects of oil revenues on the economy, which could lead to high liquidity. “It also seeks to support the private sector and cooperatives.”
He also rejected the idea of allocating NDFI’s resources to “irrelevant issues such as marriage loans” as “illegal”. The fund was established to preserve part of oil revenues for future generations, he argued.
Media reports recently suggested that the parliament was pushing for the allocation of part of the fund’s resources to marriage loans. The reports, however, were faced with immediate reaction from the ministry of economic affairs and finance, which said such decisions should only be left for the administration to make.
The NDFI is now considering investing in international monetary and financial markets, said Nouri Naeeni, expressing hope that the ease of Western sanctions in the coming months would “open investment opportunities for the fund.”
