TEHRAN - Iranian Finance and Economic Affairs Minister Ehsan Khandouzi announced on Wednesday that his ministry has set stabilizing the economy and curbing inflation as major goals for defining future plans, IRNA reported.

“Following the president’s guidelines, our economic policies in the coming months will be focused on increasing economic growth, facilitating the business environment, stabilizing the economy and curbing inflation,” Khandouzi said.

Referring to the details of a meeting of the Government's Economic Headquarters held on Tuesday evening, he stated: “At the meeting of the government's economic headquarters, the general outlines of the ministry’s roadmap for the economic growth, production increase, and curbing inflation was reviewed and approved.”

“[based on this roadmap] It is decided to help increase productivity and improve the business environment through two categories of measures. First, removing barriers to the production and business by chain financing of businesses, and raising corporate tax while reducing the production tax rates,” the minister explained.

The second category of government economic measures includes serious support for pioneering projects that have multiple chains and will generate large revenues and create employment, Khandouzi added.

Pointing to the ways for financing pioneering projects, the official noted that the participation of foreign partners mainly from neighboring countries, the issuance of project shares and offering them at the stock market, and finally using the capacity of large holdings and subsidiaries of the country’s banks and large state and public companies are among the ways through which the government plans to fund these projects.

Khandouzi also pointed to his ministry’s plan for curbing inflation based on monetary and credit measures and budget centered steps in collaboration with the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) and the country's Budget and Planning Organization (BPO), saying: “Budget measures and the use of monetary instruments such as controlling banks' balance sheets on a monthly basis, controlling interbank market rates and open market operations will be among these programs.”

Preventing tax evasion, controlling government spending, selling surplus assets of government-owned entities and generating revenue by the government-owned companies were also mentioned as ways for reducing budget deficit in the current year.

EF/MA