After reviewing the proposed budget for the upcoming Iranian calendar year (beginning in March 2014), the Iranian parliament’s Research Center announced the Rouhani government budget is more dependent on oil in comparison to the budgets of Ahmadinejad’s government.
This center in its report on next year’s budget wrote, “Despite the decrease in oil exports, practically the dependency of budget resources to oil has decreased. In the 1391 Iranian calendar year (March 2012 to March 2013), around 426 trillion rials (around $14.2 billion) of the budget was provided through the selling of oil resources. However, this amount has reached 778 trillion rials (around $26 billion) in the budget planned for the 1393 Iranian calendar year.”
Considering international sanctions imposed on Iran this center questioned such statistics and wrote, “The massive use of resources resulting from oil… should be reconsidered considering the conditions facing the country regarding economic sanctions.”
Iranian MPs also revealed that Rouhani intends to compensate the regime’s decreasing revenue by increasing currency rates. They wrote in their report, “Practically, the decrease in exports has been somewhat reimbursed by an increase in currency rates and to some amount oil prices.”
This report adds, “The budget resources as a whole especially rely on oil revenues and this is not in line with conditions imposed by the sanctions. Practically, a portion of the resources will not be realized and experience shows the previous numbers of around 200 trillion rials (around $67 billion) for construction projects would not be provided for. Comparing the forecasted numbers in the bill, especially the resources, shows the first 7-months of the 1392 Iranian calendar year had a stark difference between what was estimated in the budget bill and what actually took place.”
The Research Center of Iran’s parliament writes in its conclusion, “The country’s economy is in a relatively intense inflation recession and it faces difficulties in oil exports and the transfer of the resulting revenues.”