TEHRAN- The speaker of Iranian Privatization Organization (IPO) announced that in its planned budget for the next Iranian calendar year 1397 (starting March 21, 2018), the government expects to earn some 106 trillion rials (about $2.45 billion) of income from divesting shares of sate-run companies to the private sector, IRNA reported on Sunday.

“The gained income from offering governmental stakes in the next year’s budget has witnessed no rise in comparison to that of the present year and is much more less than the earned figure in the preceding Iranian calendar year 1395 (ended March 20, 2017),” Ja’far Sobhani told IRNA. 

“In 1395’s budget plan, IPO was supposed to earn 165 trillion rials (about $3.8 billion) and could manage to gain almost 100 percent of the predicted income,” he added.

According to the IPO speaker, about 3.03 trillion rials (above $70 million) of stat-run shares have been transferred to the private sector in the first nine months of the present Iranian year (ending December 21, 2017).

From the said figure, 102 billion rials (about $2.3 million) was earned via offering shares in Iranian stock exchange market and 2.9 trillion rials (about $67 million) was divested via holding bids.

HJ/MA