BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 16. Iranian government and the private sector have a combined debt of $113.3 billion to the National Development Fund of Iran, said Mehdi Ghazanfari, head of the Board of Directors of the National Development Fund, Trend reports.
He added that $100 billion of this amount was the government’s debt and $13.3 billion was the private sector’s debt.
The official emphasized that this money could be used to finance many development projects in the country, had it been paid back.
Ghazanfari also criticized the government officials for not caring about the future generations, who are the main beneficiaries of the fund. He said that the money taken from the fund should be returned and invested in projects that serve the long-term interests of the country.
He gave an example of how $4.6 billion was borrowed from the fund since 2015 for building 46 power plants in Iran. He said that only $3.7 billion was repaid.
Ghazanfari noted that the National Development Fund of Iran was willing to support the construction of renewable energy power plants that could generate 10,000 megawatt-hours of electricity in Iran with a $5 billion investment. He added that new projects could be launched if the outstanding funds were returned on time.
Meanwhile, the value of Iran’s crude oil and petroleum products sales is expected to be 6.03 quadrillion rials (about $26.2 billion), according to the budget bill for the next Iranian year (March 21, 2023 through March 19, 2024). Under the budget bill, Iran plans to sell 1.4 million barrels of crude oil per day at an average price of $85 per barrel.
The budget bill also stipulated that 42 percent of the revenue from Iran’s crude oil sales would go to the National Development Fund.
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