There are more than 77,000 incomplete development projects across the country, the completion of which requires 4-5 quadrillion rials ($112-140 billion at market exchange rates).
If oil revenues annually stand at about $33 billion, as they did last year, it will take over two decades to complete these projects, provided no new development project is launched, the report in the Persian daily Etemad added, noting that these half-complete projects have already guzzled down about $147 billion.
“If 100 to 150 trillion rials (between $28 billion and $42 billion) worth of these projects are delegated to the private sector, some 800,000 jobs will be created annually,” the head of Tehran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture, Masoud Khansari, said.
“We have, at the Tehran chamber, carried out a study on the German privatization wherein projects were handed to qualified and competent people, without the government expecting to benefit financially from the scheme. Today these same projects form the backbone of the German industry and economy,” he added.
