Ebrahim Raeisi, who attended the open session of the Parliament on Wednesday morning in order to present the budget bill to the Parliament, said, "In the fiscal year 1401, the government was able to achieve success with the cooperation of all the concerned and caring people and benefiting from their efforts, thoughts and efforts in the government, parliament and all departments that operate in the name of the holy system of the Islamic Republic."
The President added, "The first part of the country's 1402 budget bill, which is related to state-owned companies, was submitted to the Islamic Consultative Assembly one month earlier according to the law so that the parliament has more time to deal with the budget of this part."
The President stated, "All our efforts were to ensure that the budget bill 1402 was fully in line with the policies announced by the Leader and the policies of the 7th Development Plan," adding, "Of course, you are aware that the general policies of the 7th Development Plan reached us in mid-September, that is, in the middle of the drafting of the budget bill, but nevertheless, the 1402 budget was inspired by the policies announced by the Leader."
"After the finalization of the budget bill, the government devoted its efforts to developing the 7th Development Plan so that this plan can be submitted to the parliament as soon as possible," Raeisi said.
The President stated that the government and the parliament will definitely take into consideration how far the past programmes have been implemented and what were the reasons for the non-implementation of parts of these programmes, and said, "Considering that the evaluations indicate that 30 to 35 per cent of the past programmes have been implemented, our focus will be that the 7th Development Plan will be formulated in such a way that it will be fully implemented."
Referring to the points considered by the Leader in the general policies of the 7th Development Plan, Raeisi added, "One of these important points is to separate permanent orders from one-year orders so that businesses become more stable in the coming years and the parliament can review the budget bill easier."
Referring to the 59.3 percent inflation at the beginning of the 13th Administration, Raeisi stated, "In the current situation, with the efforts made, we are witnessing a 19-point reduction in inflation, but financial behaviours, decisions and actions must lead to a further reduction in inflation. The government seriously pursues financial discipline in order to reduce inflation and unemployment."
The President referred to the promise in terms of employment creation statistics, and noted, "In the second half of the year 1400 and in 1401, we are not short in the promise we made for creating one million jobs annually, and the unemployment rate has decreased."
At the same time, the President said that the spirit of cooperation between the parliament and the government in the implementation of economic reforms alone cannot be effective and requires additional measures and the design of a comprehensive economic plan and package such as reducing inflation and liquidity management in order to reach the target point.
The President considered preventing tax evasion and identifying new taxpayers as a difficult measure, but emphasised that the government was able to increase the revenues of this area by 66% by preventing tax evasion and noted that the process of combating tax evasion will continue with more seriousness.
Raeisi considered the control and monitoring of the banking system as one of the important issues and added, "If the government controls its resources and expenses, but the banks are not controlled in creating money or increasing liquidity, problems will arise again."
The President continued, "One of the tasks that has been pursued since the beginning of this year, and now the follow-up process has been doubled, is the issue of controlling income and expenses and monitoring the banking system in order to prevent the creation of money and increase in liquidity."
Raeisi considered the reform of the budget structure as one of the emphasis of the Leader and a serious necessity of the country and stated, "In the budget bill of 1402, the strengthening of production and employment has been given special attention and 540 trillion tomans for the purpose of investing state companies in the country's economy and 327 trillion Tomans is also planned as the construction budget of the government."
Raeisi further mentioned the 7% reduction in the tax on production units as well as the reduction in the customs tariff of livestock inputs and basic goods from 4% to 1% as tax incentives foreseen in budget bill 1402 in order to support production and employment.
The President considered housing as an important concern of the people and their representatives in the Parliament and said, "The government will make the necessary forecasts in next year's budget in order to provide financial resources to support the construction of housing, as well as provide the necessary credits from the transportation development fund."
The issue of "health" was one of the main topics of the President's speech, and Raeisi said in this regard, "In the next year's budget bill, 69 trillion tomans are considered to provide subsidies for medicine and medical equipment, and the government is trying to implement the plan of the family doctor."
Emphasizing that the government has tried to give special attention to the creation of economic and market stability so that economic and production activities are predictable for entrepreneurs and investors, the President said, "Certainly, the parliament allocates a lot of time to review the budget, which is carefully and I appreciate the concern and compassion of the representatives."
The President added, "With all the seditions that the enemy did during this period and the conspiracies and combined war that they launched in the political, economic and psychological fields to mobilise the world assemblies against the Islamic Republic of Iran, today the great nation of Iran feels proud that it has defeated the enemy."
Raeisi said, "We thank God that our wise nation disappointed the enemy according to our wise leader and this time, as in the past, the enemies of this nation were defeated in these conspiracies, and of course, our responsibility towards the good, pious, and sincere people who love the Revolution has doubled."
On this basis, the President pointed out, "All the elements of the system must do their best to serve the people and take steps to solve the problems. We consider ourselves capable of solving problems and we deeply believe in the slogan of "we can" and move things forward with cooperation, empathy, coordination and convergence."
Raeisi expressed hope that next year's budget will be the best budget compared to the previous budgets, and by announcing the imminent submission of the 7th Development Plan bill to the parliament, he thanked the people's representatives, as well as the parliament's presiding committee and the members of the specialised budget review commissions.
MNA/President.ir