TEHRAN - The newly drafted bill for the sixth five-year national development plan (2016-2021), proposed by Iran’s Management and Planning Organization, stipulates that 30 percent of Iran’s National Development Fund (NDF) assets must be funded by the exports of crude oil, gas, and gas condensate.

For the time being, 20 percent of that revenue is flowing to the NDF.

According to the bill, there will be an annual increase of 2 percent to the proposed 30-percent bottom-line from the start of the five-year plan (March 21, 2016), the Tasnim news agency reported on Saturday.

The bill, yet to be ratified by the government and the parliament (Majlis), specifies that the government is allowed to use the assets of NDF to catch up with its budget deficit only if annual oil revenues contract to less than 930 trillion rials (about $25.5 billion) due to market fluctuations.

Also, the proposed bill makes it clear that the government is required to deposit any surplus revenue, having paid to the NDF and the Oil Ministry, to the foreign currency account of the Central Bank of Iran, in cases the government’s oil revenues spill over 1.24 quadrillion rials (about $33.9 billion).

Besides, more revealed details of the bill say that Iran’s Management and Planning Organization has proposed that a state-run small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) bank be established so as to boost and expand entrepreneurship as well as provide financial support for SME projects.

According to the bill, the bank’s charter will be drafted jointly by the Management and Planning Organization, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Finance, the Ministry of Cooperatives, Labor, and Social Welfare, and the Central Bank of Iran. The charter is to be ratified by the government over the next six months.

Iran’s sixth five-year development plan comprises of 80 provisions and is based on three pillars: resistance economy, progress in science and technology, and cultural excellence.

The plan, once implemented, envisages smooth yet continuous economic growth with an average rate of 8 percent during the five-year period.

AK/