Azerbaijan, Baku, May 8/Trend M. Moezzi
By approving $54 billion (USD) in funding for the second phase of subsidy reforms, the Budget Integration Committee in Iran's Majlis (parliament) has given the green light to a 70 per cent price hike for petrol, natural gas, electricity and diesel.
If the funding is approved, the majority of it ($41 billion) will come from a more than 20 per cent increase in the price of energy carriers, Mehr news agency reports.
Some of the $54 billion will be funded by lifting bread, flour and electricity subsidies ($8 billion) and taxes ($3.2 billion). The rest (about $41 billion) will come from price reforms for energy carriers.
That would mean petrol that costs more than 81 cents a litre, diesel that costs 24 cents a litre and electricity, natural gas and compressed natural gas would cost several times more than they do now.
Members of the Majlis are emphasising that the government won't be allowed to raise the price of energy carriers more than 20 per cent.
Iran's Official figures show that during the first 15 months of the subsidies reform programme, price liberalisation for energy carriers brought the government more than $20 billion (USD) in revenues.