Iran to offer $7.7b of state shares Wed, 07 Mar 2007 12:08:18 Iran said Tuesday it will offer $7.7 billion worth of shares of state-owed companies over the next 12 months in an attempt to revitalize the drive towards privatization in Iran.
The initial public offering on the Tehran Stock Exchange will begin as early as April, the start of the Iranian calendar year.
Minister of Economic Affairs and Finance Davud Danesh-Jafari said the country's banking system would also offer financial services to consumers to empower them to purchase more shares of companies, IRNA reported.
"Since the private sector will not have enough money to buy these shares, the banking system must help it to facilitate the privatization process," he said.
The Ahmadinejad administration has been tasked with transferring to private ownership at least 60 percent of shares of Iran's state-owned companies by March 2008.
The move comes under the auspices of Article 44 of the Iranian Constitution, which over the next few years will require large-scale privatization in the country, a major downsizing of government economic bodies, and will enable the private sector to play a more active role in Iran's economy.
The finance minister added that the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has called for greater cooperation among Iran's three branches of the government in implementing Article 44.
Iran's parliament (Majlis) earlier approved a key economic plan intended to help execute the terms of Article 44. The plan will bar the government from embarking on any new major domestic economic endeavors over the next 12 months.
Among the key measures of the new plan is the ability of the Ministry of Industries and Mines to grant mining rights to the private sector over the next 10 years. It also tasks the government to help the private sector and cooperative companies contribute more effectively to improving Iran's economic standing at the international level.
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