TEHRAN - President Hassan Rouhani presented the administration’s draft of the national budget bill for the next Iranian calendar year 1396, which starts on March 21, 2017, to the Majlis.

The proposed national budget amounted to about 10.849 quadrillion rials (about $486 billion), an 11 percent rise year on year.

Next year’s national budget is based on an oil price of $50 per barrel, up from $40 last year, with a focus on unemployment, water resources, railways and the environment. It also sees a projected average exchange rate of 33,000 rials to the U.S. dollar for the fiscal year. The rial is currently 38,600 to the dollar on the open market.

The funding for running the government increased by 260 trillion rials (about $6.8 billion) and was set at 3.2 quadrillion rials (about $84.2 billion).

The draft national budget estimates crude oil exports at about 2.42 million barrels per day. Oil income has a share of 1.1 quadrillion rials (about $29 billion) in the budget, a 48 percent rise year on year.

Meanwhile, the budget has allocated 600 trillion rials (about $15.7 billion) to development projects, compared to 570 trillion rials (about $15 billion) in the current year’s budget. The budget bill has envisaged that tax income will rise by 8.7 percent in the next year, reaching 1.12 quadrillion rials (about $29 billion).  

“Maintaining the growth rate that was launched in the (current) year is the main economic issue for the country and all economic policies should be designed around this axis,” Rouhani told MPs.

“We hope to end the (current) year with single-digit inflation, a 5 percent growth rate and the creation of 700,000 new jobs,” Rouhani said in his speech.

MG