TEHRAN - The 97th meeting of the Dialogue Council of Government and Private sector was held in Tehran on Monday in which facilitation of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) listing on the stock exchange was discussed.

As reported by the portal of Iran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture (ICCIMA), the meeting was attended by senior officials including Finance and Economic Affairs Minister Farhad Dejpasand, and ICCIMA Head Gholam-Hossein Shafeie.

In the meeting, which was chaired by Dejpasand, the performance of the single-window system, which was launched on June 30 to accelerate the process of private companies’ acceptance to the stock market, was also discussed and assessed.

The financing of semi-finished projects from the resources of the capital market was also another issue that was explored in the gathering of the government and the private sector representatives.

Speaking in the meeting, Dejpasand mentioned the positive impact of the single-window system on the process of private companies’ acceptance into the capital market and noted that in the current Iranian calendar year 50 private companies are expected to be listed on the stock exchange market.

The Iranian government has been recently placing significant importance upon the country’s capital market for offsetting the country’s budget deficit, as the U.S. sanctions on the county’s oil industry and the decline in global oil prices due to the coronavirus outbreak have created some problems for realizing the country’s provisioned budget.

On June 30, ICCIMA, Iranian Association of Internal Audits (IAIA), Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE), and Iran’s over-the-counter (OTC) market, known as Iran Fara Bourse (IFB), signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for launching a single-window system to facilitate the listing of new companies on the stock market and to encourage new private companies to join this arena.

Although the Iranian stock market is a newly developed market and people have only recently gotten acquainted with its activities, this market has been booming in recent years.

In the past Iranian year 1398 (ended on March 19), the performance of the Tehran Stock Exchange, which is the main stock market of Iran, was unprecedented, as its main index, TEDPIX, which had closed at 178,000 points at the end of the calendar year 1397, climbed to 512,000 points at the end of last year.

Many domestic companies have already offered their shares in the market, while much more are getting ready to join.

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Photo: Finance and Economic Affairs Minister Farhad Dejpasand (2nd L), and ICCIMA Head Gholam-Hossein Shafeie (c) attend the 97th meeting of Dialogue Council of Government and Private sector in Tehran on Monday.