Azerbaijan, Baku, May 11/ Trend F.Milad/
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denied that the government plans to treble the price of gasoline to 20,000 rials, saying that the price may reach a maximum of 10,000 rials by the end of the fifth five-year development plan in 2015.
"They say gasoline the price will reach 20,000 rials. These are basically false. They want to disturb the market. By the end of the plan the gasoline price may reach half of the said price," he said, the Mehr News Agency reported.
"Comments published saying the government has decided to sell gasoline at 20,000 rials (about $1.64) per litre are entirely false," the presidential office said in a statement issued on Monday.
Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani said on Friday that the government was seeking to triple petrol prices and to double the cost of natural gas as part of the next stage of the plan to reduce spending on energy subsidies.
Last year the International Monetary Fund commended the Iranian government for its subsidy reform policy which it said had led to a reduction in fuel consumption.
MP Gholam-Reza Mesbahi-Moqaddam says now that Iran is entering the second stage of the subsidy reform plan and that the most appropriate price for a litre of petrol is 10,000 rials (about 82 U.S. cents).
Currently gasoline is sold at two prices: a 50-litre monthly allowance at 4000 rials (33 cents) per litre, and any amount above that at 7000 rials (57 cents) per litre.
Mesbahi-Moqaddam, who is the chairman of the Majlis Economic Reform Committee, told the Mehr News Agency that since the subsidy reform plan must be implemented over a five-year period, 10,000 rials per litre is the best price for gasoline which is now sold at 7000 rials per litre. He also suggested that the monthly allowance price of 4000 rials per litre be increased to 7000 rials per litre.
The first stage of the subsidy reform plan which is mainly focused on cutting fuel subsidies started in December 2010. Now the government is about to start the second stage.
The total amount of subsidies paid to families during the previous Iranian calendar year, which ended on March 19, was 400 trillion rials ($32.6 billion), which for the current year has increased to 540 trillion rials ($44 billion), the MP added.
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