TEHRAN- Iranian Privatization Organization (IPO) will offer 4.5 trillion rials (over $107 million) of state-run shares to the private sector in the current Iranian calendar month of Mehr (September 23-October 22), according to an official in the IPO.

Seyed Jafar Sobhani, the advisor to the head of IPO, said the value of state-run shares transferred to the private sector during the first half of the current year (March 21-Septeber 22) was more than that of the whole previous year, IRIB reported on Monday.

As reported last week, IPO has offered 20 trillion rials (about $476 million) of state-run shares to the private sector since the beginning of the present calendar year.

Privatization in Iran witnessed 100 percent growth during the first five months of this year (March 21-August 22) compared to the same period of time in the previous year, IPO Head Mir Ali Ashraf Abdollah Pouri-Hosseini has previously announced.

In late May, IPO published the list of the enterprises that their shares are planned to be transferred to the private sector by the end of current Iranian calendar year (March 20, 2019).

As previously reported, in its planned budget for 1397, the Iranian government expects to earn some 106 trillion rials (about $2.5 billion) of income from divesting shares of sate-run companies to the private sector.

The government envisioned a large privatization program in the Fifth Five-Year National Development Plan (2010-2015), aiming to privatize about 20 percent of the state-owned firms each year. Under the present interpretation of the Article 44, some state-owned companies have been privatized to reduce their financial burden on the country’s budget and also increase their productivity.

MA/MA