Iran Plans Deep Cut in Reliance on Oil Incomes
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iranian Vice President Mohammad Baqer Nobakht said a new scheme to reduce the country’s reliance on oil revenues is expected to restrict the dependence on petrodollars to only 10 percent.
Nobakht, who is also head of Iran’s Plan and Budget Organization, said the major scheme to lower the share of oil incomes in the budget has four main axes and 23 plans that will result in sustainable incomes for the administration, savings in costs, economic stability, and a stronger budget.
Eleven of those 23 plans will be implemented by March 2020, he added.
Pointing to the oscillations in the price of oil and a consequent impact on incomes and spending, Nobakht said a substitute plan for the budget will reduce the country’s reliance on the oil incomes to only 10 percent.
In comments in December 2018, Iranian First Vice-President Eshaq Jahangiri said it was unlikely that the oil revenues’ share in the budget for the next Iranian fiscal year would be more than 25 percent.
Iran’s efforts to cut reliance on the oil incomes began long before the US administration announced plans in 2018 to drive the Islamic Republic’s oil exports down to zero.
Tensions between Iran and the US have escalated since US President Donald Trump walked away from the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers in May 2018 and re-imposed sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
The White House has announced plans to get as many countries as possible down to zero Iranian oil imports and launch a campaign of “maximum economic and diplomatic pressure” on Iran.