In an unprecedented move, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday attended the Majlis session to defend the next yearÕs budget bill for second time.

Parliamentarians approved the outline of the budget bill for fiscal year 2008-09, IRIB reported on Wednesday.
The outline of the 274,000-trillion-rial bill, the third to be presented by the incumbent administration of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad since taking office in August 2005, was ratified by 187 votes to 47 with 19 abstentions.
The review of the bill began on Tuesday and based on Majlis bylaw, lawmakers began voting after 15 opponents and 15 proponents delivered their views. Rapporteur of the Majlis Joint Commission, first parliamentary body in charge of reviewing the bill, Mohammad Mehdi Mofatteh also spoke about the bill prior to voting.
Meanwhile, President Ahmadinejad was present in the Majlis’ Wednesday session to defend the bill.
The president’s move was taken since next year’s budget is drafted by employing a new budgeting system.
It is unprecedented for the chief executive to be present in the Majlis for the second time to defend his budget bill.
President said that the budget is transparent, acknowledging a change in methodology of compiling the budget plan.
The MPs had challenged conformity of the budget bill with the 20-Year Strategy Plan for Economic, Cultural and Social Development (20-Year Vision).
He said that the bill was the outcome of over 100 hours of hard work by him and his experts.
“This is the first time that a president is sharing his authority with his ministers and governors general,“ President Ahmadinejad told Majlis MPs.
Majlis commissions specialized in examining the budget plan and earmarking credits started their work on the next year budget bill on January 7 when it was presented by Ahmadinejad.
Criticizing the method of drawing up budget bill, the president said, “After various studies, we have noticed that there is a problem with our budgeting system as it takes a long time (six months) to formulate the bill and a much longer time to implement that through complicated administrative channels.“
The erstwhile Management and Planning Organization was responsible for drawing up the budget bills over the past three decades.
President Ahmadinejad dissolved the body handing down MPO authority to the ministries and governors general offices.
Unlike previous years, the president stressed, the government and Majlis’ attention would be concentrated this year on ’major categories to distribute the budget through proper and smooth mechanisms’.
He said that the budget is the most important and precise document that is the outcome of expert studies in line with the 20-Year Vision.

Majlis began reviewing the budget bill for fiscal year 2008-09 on Tuesday. The 274,000-trillion-rial budget bill submitted by the President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on January 7 is the fourth, the last and the most different to be reviewed by the incumbent parliament.
The government has applied a new budgeting system in outlining next year’s budget bill. This has made the document different from earlier ones in quality and quantity.
The new bill is not encumbered by the myriad notes and paragraphs which rendered the preceding ones virtually incomprehensible and far from transparent.
The number of pages in the bill has also been cut to 600 this year from last year’s 2,400. The number of executive organizations receiving direct budget has also been decreased from 600 to 60.
Defending the bill in the Majlis session on January 7, the president criticized previous governments for drafting bills using procedures which have been in place for four decades. “Despite many political, economic, military, cultural and administrative developments, the previous governments were not interested in changing a system practiced in the past forty years,“ said the president.
Maybe the reason for this is rooted in the country’s lethargic planning system, which cannot bear modern methods and resist change.
Complicacy of the budget bill creates problem for the main supervisory body, Majlis. As President Ahmadinejad said, “I can hardly name an executive colleague or a Majlis deputy that have a thorough knowledge of the budget law.“ In other words, president meant that a voluminous budget bill encompassing many details made its understanding difficult for those working in the executive and legislative branches not to mention the public.
Some pitfalls in previous budget laws which the government had to get rid of include:
1 - The previous budget laws were far from transparent. They contained a dozen of notes and paragraphs that created difficulties for the parliamentarians to make decisions. On the other hand, overseeing such complicated budget law was a daunting task for supervisory bodies.
2 - Another weak point of budget laws adopted by using previous budgeting system is complication in implementation. For instance, the Majlis approved over 180 ratification for implementation of the budget law for the current Iranian year to March 2008.
The government, for its part, should approve at least 60 bylaws for their implementation. Given that the cabinet holds its sessions every two weeks, it took the cabinet many hours to ratify these bylaws. And finally this is a fact that when execution of a law is difficult, ways to evade it is much easier.
3 - Meanwhile, high number of directives, notes, paragraphs, etc. needed for implementation of the budget laws has triggered many unnecessary issues.
As maintained by the president, the budget bill for fiscal year 2008-09 is a ’major event’, a move toward ’transparency, development, and compliance with the Islamic Republic Constitution’.

Iran’s international bourse will be launched this week, Oil Minister Gholamhossein Nozari announced.
The bourse for oil products will open this weekend in a ceremony attended by Minister of Economic Affairs and Finance Davoud Danesh Jafari, said the minister on the sidelines of the cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
“President of the oil bourse will be appointed by the economy minister and transactions will be conducted in the national currency rial.“
Danesh Jafari had earlier stated that the Oil Bourse is to be located on the Persian Gulf island of Kish, Hormuzgan province.
In a related development, head of the Retirement Fund of Oil Industry, one of the main shareholders in the bourse, said that until last week, seven petrochemical companies expressed readiness to put their products on sale in the bourse.
Mehdi Karbasian told ISNA Wednesday that in the first stage, the bourse will offer lubricants and some petrochemical products while in the second stage it will trade in furnace oil and bitumen. “Transactions can be carried out in any foreign currency.“
Earlier, the official regretted that the establishment of the bourse, which was first reported in 2005, has been delayed several times. The exchange has missed at least three announced opening dates until now.
Karbasian blamed disagreement between oil and economy ministers for the delay.
Other problem facing the bourse was specifying the commodities which are to be traded. “Given that petrochemical products, oil derivates and even crude need special pricing and supervision mechanisms, making decision on such issues requires a great deal of time and attention.“
Iran is planning to open a commodity exchange, variously referred to as the Iran Petroleum Exchange, International Oil Bourse or Iranian Oil Bourse.
It would be a Petrobourse for petroleum, petrochemicals and gas in various non-dollar currencies, primarily the euro. If successful, it would establish a euro-based pricing mechanism for oil trading, or oil marker, as it is called by traders.
Although opening an oil bourse has so far been unsuccessful, Iran has had success in asking its petroleum customers to pay in non-dollar currencies. On December 8, 2007 Iran reported it had converted all its oil export payments to non-dollar currencies.

Block sale of over 3.1 billion shares of the complex on November 25 failed to attract buyers.

Five percent of the total shares of Mobarakeh Steel Complex were traded in the stock exchange on Wednesday, managing director of Mellat Bank Brokerage announced.
Some 790 million stocks of the steel giant were sold at 12:24 p.m. at a base price of 3,900 rials, Mohammad Ghaffarpour told Fars news agency.
The shares were floated at 12:16 p.m. and the buyer put its offer eight minute later.
Hafez Brokerage has bought the shares worth 3,080 billion rials for an unnamed buyer.
As per regulations, the buyer should pay 20 percent of total value in cash (within a month).
Other 15 percent of shares of the steel giant will be offered in three blocks in the bourse on February 16, 17 and 18.
Block sale of over 3.1 billion shares of the complex on November 25 failed to attract the interest of buyers. Privatization Organization earlier predicted that no investor was able to pay total value of the transaction in cash.
As a result the shares are now being offered gradually in the stock exchange in four five-percent blocks. Shares of the state companies are transferred to the private sector in line with Article 44 of the Constitution which seeks large-scale privatization in key economic areas and downsizing the government.

France energy giant Total plans to remain in Iran despite US-led international pressure on the country over its nuclear program, the French oil company said on Wednesday.
“We have not burnt our bridges with Iran,“ Christophe de Margerie told a press conference on Wednesday, Reuters reported.
“We will find solutions to maintain our long-term presence,“ he said, adding geopolitical tension was associated with nearly all the countries in which Total is present.
France, which has been taking a leading role in calling for more sanctions to isolate Iran over its nuclear ambitions, recently urged energy companies Total and Gaz de France to refrain from investing in the OPEC country.
Total reached an agreement with Iran in February 2004 for the development of phase XI of the giant South Pars gas field in the Persian Gulf.
The company’s CEO said earlier in November that Iran could be a valuable source of new energy supplies as Europe frets about possible gas shortages and heavy reliance on Russia.
De Margerie said that talks over South Pars development had slowed, but denied this was the result of a French government call in September to show restraint in dealing with Iran as the West tries to rein in its nuclear program.
“Today I would be happy to have a (South Pars) contract ready for signing, but there is no contract yet,“ he said. “Sometimes you have to soft-pedal a bit, but with Iran we will preserve a long-term relationship.
“Maybe there is something to be done as far as the supply of energy to Europe is concerned,“ de Margerie said, speculating that supplies could be shipped or piped via Turkey.

Minister of economic affairs and finance on Wednesday called for the implementation of the Money-Laundering Law.
Davoud Danesh-Jafari explained that the law was endorsed by the Guardians Council following its approval by the parliament on January 22, he told IRIB.
Asked whether the restrictions in the money-laundering campaign would be removed, he said these limitations arose due to differences in views.
An agreement was reached following consultations among various parties and the Guardians Council eventually endorsed the law, he elaborated.
Commenting on how the newly-ratified law would prevent the accumulation of illegal wealth, Danesh-Jafari said, “Even before the ratification of this law, we did not come across illegal revenues.“
The Central Bank of Iran enforced many controls on the banking system, the minister underlined. With the ratification of the Money-Laundering Law, controls will be conducted systematically, he added.
On charges of money laundering alleged by the US against two commercial banks Saderat and Melli, CBI governor earlier said that these groundless accusations stem from US belligerence towards Iranian government and nation. No lawsuit against Iranian banks on money laundering has been filed anywhere in the world, Tahmasb Mazaheri declared.
Money laundering, he said, is used by those involved in illegal activities, such as drug trafficking, organized crime, tax-evasion, bribery and corruption to clean dirty money.
In addition, CBI has obliged banks to campaign against money laundering since 2002, he underlined.
He continued that US banks have the highest number of money laundering in the world. This is while, no case of money laundering has been reported in Iranian banks, he compared.

A Samand production line

Production line for Samand LX sedans powered by fuel-efficient TU5 engines will be inaugurated in Syria in a ceremony to be attended by First Vice President Parviz Davoudi in March, said deputy managing director of Iran Khodro Company, Majid Sheikhani.
The car body’s production line has been completed and color line project is nearing completion, he said adding, “Once the line goes into operation, the production capacity of the car will increase by 35,000 units.“
Turning to the quality of the company’s after-sale services, he noted, “We have tried our best to transfer our experiences to countries which are part of the after-sale services chain.“
He stated that the production capacity of the company overseas is contingent upon providing after-sale services. ISNA reported.
He noted that training all personnel of the company’s representatives offices, offering after-sale services, in the fields of safety parts is one of the future programs of the company, adding Iran Khodro is planning to increase electronic systems in its after-sale services networks well.
He noted that Iran Khodro use the facilities of some other auto manufacturing companies such as Peugeot, Renault, Benz and Suzuki for its after-sale services.