Azerbaijan, Baku, Dec.8/ Trend G.Mehdi/
Considering problems regarding oil revenues and high national expenses, Iran will certainly face a budget deficit of $40-50 billion in the nest Iranian calendar year, which starts on March 20, 2013, the Moj News Agency quoted Tehran's Chamber of Commerce Chairman Yahya Al-e Es'haq as saying.
The budget deficit can be tackled through cutting development and current budgets, he said, adding that cutting the development budge will culminate in a job creation fall.
The development budget and the current budget account for 80 percent and 20 percent of the national budget respectively, he noted.
Iran's national budget for the next fiscal year will assume exports of just 1 million barrels of oil a day, the head of budget commission in the Iranian parliament (Majlis) Gholam-Reza Mesbahi Moghaddam said on Thursday.
The Iranian government is preparing the next solar year budget to submit to the Parliament, but reportedly with significant difference from current year budget in details.
Iran is expected to sell $81 billion worth of oil, condensate and gas during current solar year, according to the budget law, which shares 17.5 percent of $461 billion-budget (based on official USD rate in Iran, 1226 rials).
The current state budget relies $53 billion worth income on petroleum, but according to Iranian president's deputy on budget issues Rahim Mambini, the administration wants to decrease budgets' dependence on oil by 30 to 40 percent in next year.
"Apparently, the government wants to decrease the 1392 (the next Iranian year starting on March 21) state budget's reliance on oil exports to one million barrels a day," Mesbahi Moqaddam was quoted by Fars News Agency on November 26.
Some 1 million barrels per day decrease in oil export means losing $40 billion oil incomes in a year.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that Iranian oil exports dipped below 1 million barrels per day (bpd) over summer as U.S. and European Union sanctions on Tehran tightened.
It is while according to official Iranian government data available through the Joint Oil Data Initiative (JODI), Iran exported an average of just over 2 million bpd in 2011.
Iranian officials usually maintain that oil exports have not been significantly affected by western sanctions and say that the sanctions are an opportunity for the country to wean itself off heavy dependence on oil.
The U.S. government has focused on blocking Iran's oil exports because it estimates that crude sales provide about half of Iranian government revenues.
The IEA estimates that Iranian oil exports bounced to 1.3 million bpd in October. But if the country's budget planners are now expecting to sell only 1 million bpd on average next year it implies Iran expects to make around $110 million less each day from oil sales than before sanctions tightened in early 2012.
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