Ali Tayebnia made the remarks at an analytical corner entitled ‘Learning to Live with Cheaper Oil - Policy Adjustment in Oil-Exporting Countries of the Middle East and Central Asia’ held on the sidelines of World Bank-IMF Annual Meetings 2016 in Washington DC.
The official pointed to the fall in oil prices in recent years as they experienced a 46.5% reduction in 2014 as compared to the earlier year; “Iran faced low oil prices in time with unfair sanctions when oil exports were capped at one million barrels per day.”
“Following the ending of sanctions in January, Iran managed to boost oil exports nearly reaching pre-sanction levels,” he continued.
He noted that the country viewed sanctions and low oil prices as means of reducing reliance on oil revenues, a goal which was successfully realized.
“The share of non-oil revenues grew from 57% in 2013 to 68.6% in 2015 while reliance on oil declined from 43% to 31.4% in the same time period,” said the official adding “Iran’s tax and customs revenues have also experienced a significant rise over recent years.”
Tayebnia recalled that in addition to short-term policies mostly based on monetary and fiscal discipline, business environment was also improved by facilitating the process of paying taxes or customs duties.
“Economic authorities of Iran expanded institutional reforms to the financial market to increase the share of capital market in financing production projects.’
In the meantime, a comprehensive plan was adopted to reform the banking system in order to provide banks with the required credit with a coordinated set of efforts, he underlined.
Iran’s economy minister maintained that the Iranian government managed to bring back stability to the country’s economy and put an end to the negative rate of economic growth and the latest reports have estimated the rate to be 4.4 per cent.
“The inflation rate was also reduced from 40% in 2013 to 8.8 in the previous month,” underscored Tayebnia deeming the achievement as a great success in providing the market with stability.
He further elaborated on foreign exchange rates as influential indicators of Iran’s economic condition since they have been controlled significantly as a result of policies pursued by the government.
At the end of his remarks, Iran’s Tayebnia highlighted that these achievements have been made possible in view of the tenets of Resistance Economy.
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