Iran’s fifth five-year socio-economic development plan, which ends in 2015, has envisaged transferring up to 200,000 employees of the state-run sector to the private sector, the vice president for human resources and management affairs stated.

Speaking to the ISNA news agency, Lotfollah Forouzandeh said that around 2 million employees are working in state-run organizations. If we implement the article 44 of the Constitution toward downsizing the government, 10 percent of the civil servants should be transferred to the private sector by 2015, he noted.

Iran has privatized up to 500 companies during the last six years, said Iran’s minister of economic affairs and finance Shamseddin Hosseini in August 2011.

He announced that the government has gained around 77 billion dollars income by ceding shares of the companies to the private sector during the mentioned period.

In 2007, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei instructed government officials to speed up implementation of the policies outlined in the amendment of Article 44, and move towards economic privatization.

Massive privatization of state-owned enterprises over the past several years, which had hitherto justified the state sponsorship of major economic activities, have been the hallmark of economic reforms in Iran, which was enabled after the reinterpretation of the relevant provisions of Iran’s constitution and following authorization by the highest political decision-making bodies in Iran. 

According to the Iran Privatization Organization, over the past five years 589 state-owned companies with nearly 83 billion dollars worth of shares have been privatized, according to Middle East Online.