TEHRAN- Iranian Finance and Economic Affairs Ministry’s Deputy for Financial Supervision and Treasury Affairs issued a total of 820 trillion rials (about $19.5 billion) of Islamic bonds in the previous Iranian calendar year (ended on March 19), IRNA reported citing the deputy’s annual performance report.

The annual performance reports include the mentioned deputy’s policies, action plans, executive measures, and achievements in a year.

According to the report, the ministry balanced a total of 131.835 trillion rials (about $3.13 billion) of the government debts and receivables through the issuance of treasury bonds in the previous Iranian calendar year.

Smartening of the government financial operations has been mentioned in the report as one of the major duties of the said deputy, for which several measures have been taken since the previous year including implementation of credit allocation system, comprehensive treasury accounting system, electronic money request system, bank account management system.

Raising funds through the debt market is seen as critical for the government saddled with deep budget holes that have become bigger due to the coronavirus pandemic, collapsing oil prices, U.S. sanctions and loss of oil export revenue.

Economy Minister Farhad Dejpasand had previously said the government may not be able to realize 1.4 quadrillion rials ($33.3 billion) of its projected revenue in the current fiscal budget.

EF/MA