TEHRAN- Iranian parliament (Majlis) last week approved a bill to allocate $1.5b from the National Development Fund (NDF) to support stable job creation in the cities with less than 10,000 population, IRIB reported on Sunday.

The fund will be allocated to the non-governmental projects in agriculture, natural resources, small mines, information technology (IT), tourism, and handicrafts sectors to be implemented in the rural and nomadic areas.

Statistical Center of Iran has put the country’s unemployment rate at 12.6 percent for the spring, which corresponds to the first quarter of current Iranian calendar year (March 21-June 21), IRNA reported last week.

According to the report, the figure has witnessed a 0.4 percent rise compared to the last spring, and it shows 0.1 percent increase in comparison to the winter’s data.

The figure is estimated based on the data gathered for the economically active population with an age of 10 or above which comprised 40.6 percent of the country’s population.

MA/MG