Date: 06 Mar 2000
Time: 07:48:01
Remote Name: 156.29.145.175
Tehran, march 6, irna -- rapporteur of majlis commission on budget mohammad baqer noubakht said on monday majlis has increased the budget proposed by the government for the iranian year of 1379 (beginning march 21) from rls 358,000 billion to rls 362,000 billion, an rise of 1.1 percent from the previous year. he told reporters at the end of the first session of parliament studying the budget plan that the extra 1.1 percent of the budget will be met from oil revenues. noubakht said the government had put forward a budget of rls 85,499 billion credits for the current spendings while the commission increased the figure to 87,017 billion and the funds for development projects increased to rls 26,455 billion from the government proposal of rls 24,895 billion. he said the budget plan has envisaged dlrs 11.5 billion revenue from the crude oil exports and dlrs two billion from non-oil exports. if the government's revenues from the crude oil exports exceeded dlrs 11.5 billion, the extra revenues will be paid to the banking system for the government's debts and the retirement organization and a part of the extra revenue will be put under the control of the banking system to provide credits for development projects, he said. noubakht said the liquidity growth will drop to 20.8 percent from 24.6 percent in the iranian year 1379 (march 2000-march 2001) and 500,000 jobs will be created in the new year compared with 250,000 jobs provided in the outgoing year. he said rls 570 billion will be spent on creating jobs. the majlis commission, he noted, has contributed to boost the budget for providing jobs because it saw that as the best means of dealing with the cultural incursions. he predicted that inflation will drop to 19.5 percent from the 22 percent in the outgoing year and the economic growth will reach 4.5 percent in the new year compared with the three percent in the outgoing year. noubakht said the growth in investment will reach six percent in 1379 from the 3.9 percent in the year 1378 (march 1999-march 2000).