The Iranian parliament (Majlis) approved a bill on Tuesday that obliges the administration to take all the necessary measures by the end of spring and start the second phase of the plan in the first month of summer.
The subsidy reform plan pays 45,500 rials (about $18 based on the U.S. dollar official exchange rate of 24,800 rials) to Iranians, eliminating subsidies for fuels and some commodities.
This is while the budget and planning committee of the Majlis approved on October 20, 2013 stopping 30 percent of cash subsidy payments.
On October 19, 2013, the Central Bank of Iran Governor Valiollah Seif said that the Majlis and the administration will finalize an agreement by the end of the current Iranian calendar year to cut cash subsidies of rich families.
“People have well understood the need [to cut the cash subsidies]. The basis for doing the job has been prepared in the society,” the Mehr News Agency quoted Seif as saying.
Head of Parliamentary Economic Committee Gholamreza Mesbahi Moqaddam has said the subsidy reform plan put into place by the government has created $13 billion more in liquidity than was anticipated.
MP Ahmad Tavakkoli has criticized the current method of cash subsidy payments, saying that paying subsidies in cash to people is carried out just in Iran. Paying cash subsidies to all groups of people with different incomes should be revised given that the administration is facing budget deficit.
MNA
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