TEHRAN - Vice President for Parliamentary Affairs Hossein-Ali Amiri submitted the administration’s draft of the national budget bill for the next Iranian calendar year 1400, which starts on March 21, 2021, to the Majlis on Wednesday, IRNA reported.

The proposed budget amounted to about 24.357 quadrillion rials (about $579.928 billion at the official rate of 42,000 rials), with a 20-percent rise from the current year’s approved budget.

The bill has envisaged public resources and expenditures, the budget of state-owned companies as well as the budget for various government bodies.

Supplying basic goods, treatment, and medical equipment; securing livelihood; supporting production and employment; promoting and supporting non-oil exports and knowledge-based companies are the focal points of the bill.

The bill has estimated the government’s budget at 9.298 quadrillion rials (about $221.38 billion), with an increase of 47 percent from the figure of the current year.

It has envisaged 3.175 quadrillion rials (about $75.595 billion) of incomes, while 6.37 quadrillion rials (about $151.666 billion) of expenses.

Revenues from exporting oil, gas and gas condensate are estimated at 1.199 quadrillion rials (about $10.83 billion), up 323 percent from 454.9 trillion rials (about $10.83 billion), approved in the current year’s budget.

The bill estimates the oil presales of 700 trillion rials (about $16.666 billion).

The Oil Ministry will be authorized to issue $3 billion in Islamic oil bonds.

Like the current year’s budget, the next year’s proposed budget requires the government to pay 20 percent of its oil, gas, and gas condensate revenues to National Development Fund (NDF).

The submitted bill has envisaged allocation of €100 million from the NDF reserves to the implementation of projects for drinking-water supply to the rural areas.

It has also allocated 15 trillion rials (about $357 million) to supplying gas to the rural regions and completing the semi-finished gas-supply projects.

The bill has allocated 50 trillion rials (about $1.19 billion) to the competition of housing projects.

Tax incomes are predicted to be 2.47 quadrillion rials (about $58.809 billion), rising from 1.95 quadrillion rials (about $46.42 billion) envisaged in the present year’s budget.

The budget bill for the year 1400 is printed and distributed among the members of the parliament after its presentation and they will have 10 days to submit their proposals and reviews on the budget to relevant specialized committees.

Specialized committees will also have 15 days to submit their reviews to a parliament ad hoc budget review committee (known as Talfiq Committee).

Talfiaq Committee is a body consisting of MPs from different committees which is established each year to study the national budget bill.

Earlier, Mohammad-Baqer Nobakht, the head of the Planning and Budget Organization (PBO), had announced that the budget bill for 1400 would be submitted to the parliament with a reform of the structure.

Nobakht had also said his organization was considering $40 oil for preparing the national budget bill for the next Iranian calendar year.

“The bill will be prepared based on the U.S. dollar exchange rate at 110,000-115,000 rials”, he had said.

“The budget resources for the next year will be supplied from oil, taxation, and issuance of government bonds”, Nobakht explained.

In late November, President Hassan Rouhani’s cabinet gathered in their first extraordinary meeting for reviewing the next year’s national budget bill.

At the meeting, after outlining general strategies and policies by the president, the cabinet began reviewing the national budget bill for the year 1400.

EF/MA