Trend Persian Desk Head Dalga Khatinoglu
In November 2010, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the Iranian Foreign Currency Reserve Fund's reserves amount to $100 billion. However, Parliamentary Consolidation Commission Chair Riza Abdullahi states that the Fund does not have even $1.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) reported this week that Iran's foreign currency reserves hit $85.7 billion in 2010 and the figure will be 122.6 billion in 2011.
Central Bank of Iran head Mahmud Bahmani said the country's foreign currency reserves amounts to about $90 billion. However, he said that these funds belong to the bank not to the Foreign Currency Reserve Fund.
The Iranian Parliament adopted the state budget for 2010 at average petroleum price $ 65 per barrel. The government transfers the foreign currency received from oil sales to the Central bank and receives national currency. However, Iran sold a barrel of oil for $85 and the authorities was supposed to transfer the increased oil revenues ($20 a barrel) to the Foreign Currency Reserve Fund. Last month, the parliamentary economic committee reported that $11 billion for the last nine months of 2010 [The Iranian new year begins in March.] was not transferred to the Fund and committee proposed to sue the Oil Ministry.
Following this, Iranian Economy and Finance Minister Shamsaddin Husseini said that the Fund's reserves amount to $14 billion.
The Iranian Foreign Currency Reserve Fund was established to control over the changing oil prices' impact on the country's economy. Although the country received $300 billion during the Ahmadinejad's first presidential term (2005-2009), the Fund's reserves have not been name officially yet. Supposedly, the government transferred all funds received from oil sales to the Central bank and spent it turning them into the national currency.
Theretofore, liquidity in the country increased by $53 billion over the last year up to $270 billion.
Based on the IMF report, the inflation rate in Iran will amount to 22.5 percent and economic growth to zero in 2011.