Baku, Azerbaijan, March 6
By Fatih Karimov - Trend:
Iranian parliament has approved a bill which envisages postponing the implementation of the Sixth Development Plan in the country, the state-run IRINN TV reported March 6.
Iran's Fifth Five-Year Development Plan ends by March 21, 2016, meanwhile the parliament has not yet approved the sixth development plan.
Much of President Hassan Rouhani's economic reforms are outlined in the Sixth Development Plan (2016-20), which he introduced to the parliament in January, alongside the budget bill for the fiscal year ending 20 March 2017.
Mohammad Reza Pour-Ebrahimi, the spokesman of the Parliament's Special Commission which studies the budget, said that the government has submitted the development plan to the parliament with delay, so the MPs will not be able to study the plan and ratify it before March 21.
So the commission suggested that implementation of the fifth development plan to be extended till approval of the new plan, he added.
The MPs voted in favor of the commission's offer, however the details will be discussed later.
Iran has a long record in economic planning, known as "five-year plans" that define the country's medium-term goals.
At the end of every five-year development plan, Iran's parliament, studies its successes and failures. The outcome of the study is used to prevent a repeat of the past mistakes and in the allocation of funds to achieve the objectives of the new five-year plan.
A majority of experts in Iran maintain that the uncertainty imposed on Iran's economy acted as the biggest impediment preventing the fourth and fifth development plans from reaching their goals.
The international sanctions against Iran that in turn pushed down the predicted national income consigned some of the fifth plan's goals into oblivion.