Azerbaijan, Baku, Oct.28/ Trend, F. Karimov/
Former Iranian economy minister Shamseddin Hosseini has defended the economic performance of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's administration, saying that the national treasury held 16.230 trillion rials (about $650 million based on the US dollar official exchange rate of 24,800 rials) on August 4, which was 76 percent more than the figure corresponding to the same date the year before, the Mehr News Agency reported.
In a TV program, which was broadcasted on Sunday night, Hosseini added that the country's foreign currency reserves, including gold reserves, amounted to $100 billion.
He added that the country earned some $20 billion from selling crude oil to its customers and that the sum has been blocked due to international sanctions.
Some $55 billion had been deposited to the National Development Fund in the past administration, he said, adding that the fund holds $32 billion after deducting the loans paid.
Meanwhile, the Iranian Parliamentary Research Center released a report, which says Iran's economy contracted 3 percent during the last Iranian year which ended on March 2013, and it is estimated to contract 1.3 percent more during the current Iranian solar year.
While Iran earned $578 billion of petrodollars during 8 years longed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad presidency, it equals to a half of Iran's total oil incomes for the last 103 years.
According to the report, the average economic growth during the last 8 years is 3.52 percent, while the Statistical Centre of Iran said earlier that Iran's economy contracted by 5.4 percent during the last solar year.
During Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's presidency, all government incomes reached $864 billion from petroleum sales, taxes, privatization, issuing bonds, etc.
The Parliament Research Center said that during 2006-2011, about 300,000 job opportunities were lost, namely, the labor force decreased from 20.84 million to 20.51 million.
These statistics are completely in contrast with Ahmadijenad's claims about 5.6 percent GDP growth or created 7 million new jobs during his 8 years presidency.
The report also says that Ahmadinejad's government has predicted allocating 290 trillion rials to complete 5,540 projects, while at the end of his presidency 970 trillion rials has been allocated to the projects, while only 1,400 projects have been completed.
