A poverty alleviation fund created by the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) will be set up in Iran, said deputy economic affairs and finance minister for banking affairs.
“The fund called ’Islamic Solidarity Bank’ will be a branch of the Islamic Development Bank. The first board of directors of the fund will begin operations in our country,“ Hamid Pourmohammadi said late Sunday in Isfahan, IRIB reported.
The fund would begin functioning with $10 billion pledged by 31 companies and IDB, he stated on the sidelines of a visit by IDB executive board to Isfahan’s Mobarakeh Steel Complex.
The bank plans to set up the fund based on a decision by heads of state of the bank’s member states during the December 2005 Summit of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) in Makkah, Saudi Arabia.
The 56-member Islamic Development Bank is a multilateral institution made up of developing countries in Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the Commonwealth of Independent States, with a mandate to combat poverty. The Fund would operate within the framework of the Millennium Development Goals and focus on primary education (especially for girls); health (malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and other contagious diseases); infrastructure; agriculture; microfinance; emergency assistance; and recovery and reconstruction.ÊFinancing would be provided on concession terms, primarily for the 25 least developed Islamic Development Bank member states.
Islamic Development Bank, founded 33 years ago, is the largest financial and monetary body of the Muslim nations. Iran joined as a member 18 years ago and owns 3.9 percent of the bank’s shares.

Lawmakers voted 159 to 16, with nine abstentions for the budget for the next Iranian year on late Sunday.
The 290-trillion rial ($307 billion) budget for the fiscal year 2008-09 has increased by 25.6 percent compared with the 231-trillion-rial ($248 billion) budget outlay for the year to March 2008, IRIB reported.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad submitted next year’s budget bill, the third to be presented by the incumbent government, on January 7. The government had proposed a budget which includes government finances and state firms--of 274,000 trillion rials ($285 billion), but the figure was increased by the MPs.
Majlis speaker, Gholamali Haddad-Adel said on Monday that parliamentarians passed next year’s budget bill in five working days and nine sessions, meaning it took less time for the parliament to review the bill.
“The parliament did not change much the bill in content but the amount of the budget increased by three percent.“
The MPs increased government’s general budget by 21 trillion rials, development spending by 1,000 billion rials and the current expenses by 20,000 billion rials, he explained.
The government proposed the new budget in which oil has been calculated at $39.70 per barrel which is above this year’s figure but well below international crude prices which hovered above $95 a barrel on Sunday.
Oil revenues are Iran’s main source of earnings, and Iran expects to earn about $63 billion in the year to March.
Annual budgets determine interactions among public enterprises and set priorities for government policies. The bill is not encumbered by the myriad notes and paragraphs which rendered the preceding ones virtually incomprehensible and far from transparent, Ahmadinejad said.
He criticized the past budgeting system which was based on bargaining by state-run institutions for the highest possible share with scant attention to the actual needs. The number of pages in the budget bill has been slashed to 600 this year from last year’s 2,400.
Now that the bill was passed by the parliamentarians, it goes to the Guardian Council for final approval.
State revenues from various sources will be over 939 trillion rials in next year’s budget. General state revenues will be 863 trillion rials. Over 75 trillion rials are considered as revenues of ministries and state institutions.
The budget for the Iranian year to March 2009 was the last submitted to the parliament before legislative elections on March 14.

Iraqi oil minister says Baghdad has agreed with Tehran on exploiting oilfields shared by the two neighboring countries.
“A joint committee will be set up with the cooperation of Iranian side soon to exploit joint oilfields including the giant Majnoun oilfield,“ Hussein Sharastani was quoted by the Baghdad-based Al-Sabah daily as saying.
Both sides will sign an agreement in this respect soon, he added, rejecting allegations that Iran illegally extracted oil from Majnoun oilfield, PIN reported.
Majnoun oilfield is located near the border with Iran and is estimated to contain 30 billion barrels of oil. According to statistics by the US Department of Energy, Majnoun had a production capacity 50,000 barrels a day prior to the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
The US-based United Press International reported Iraq’s Foreign Ministry as saying on February 4 that it had passed on a letter of warning to Tehran regarding accusations Iran was illegally pumping Iraqi oil.
Accusations started earlier on February that Iran is stealing Iraqi oil, and actually forced Iraqis off the fields. The deputy chief of Iraq’s Commission on Public Integrity also claimed that Iran was behind smuggling of oil and fuel products, and blamed Iraq’s Oil Ministry for not doing enough.
“The Foreign Ministry, via Iraq’s embassy in Tehran, sent (Iraq) Oil Ministry’s memo to the Iranian government demanding cessation of all activities on these fields pending the signing of an agreement,“ Iraq’s Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs Muhammad Al-Hadj Hammoud told the Voices of Iraq news agency.
“A delegation will visit Iran to discuss border issues, including the joint Iraqi-Iranian oilfields,“ he said.
Reacting to baseless claims, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad-Ali Hosseini rejected the allegations, saying that there is no evidence.
“This allegation is not documented and those who raise such claims principally provide us with no information on such claims.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran is ready to remove any probable ambiguities to this end by setting up a joint commission to work out Article Five of the envisaged protocol pertaining to the demarcation of Iran-Iraq borders dated January 13, 1975 in the presence of both sides technical delegations,“ he underlined.

Forty percent of shares of Iran Aluminum Company (Iralco) will be floated in the bourse in one block on Tuesday.

Buyers bought three out of four five-percent blocks of shares of Mobarakeh Steel Complex offered at the stock exchange since last week.
The last block containing 790 million shares of the steel giant was purchased by Social Security Investment Fund affiliated to the Social Security Organization (SSO).
“Some 40 percent of shares of Iran Aluminum Company (Iralco) will be floated in the bourse in one block on Tuesday,“ deputy head of Privatization Organization, Mehdi Aqdaei, told ISNA on Monday.
The third block, which found no buyer on Saturday, will be offered in the stock exchange again on Sunday, he added.
The shares were sold to investors at 3,900 rials ($0.41) each. Total value of shares is estimated at over three trillion rials.
Over 3.1 billion shares of the company, valued at $1.4 billion, were floated in a single block on November 25, but failed to attract buyers due to liquidity shortage.
Buyers showed no interest in 33 million Iralco shares of Iran Aluminum Company in block on November 26. Privatization Organization had predicted that no investor is able to pay over 550 billion rials in cash for purchasing such a large number of shares in block.
So, the organization decided to relaunch initial public offerings (IPOs) of the state-owned firms gradually.
Shares of companies are transferred to private sector in line with Article 44 of the Constitution which seeks large-scale privatization in key economic areas and downsizing the government.

Iran exported about $340 million worth of carpets during March 2006-January 2007.

Iran ranks first in world carpet trade, said managing director of Iran Carpet Company.
About 40 percent of the carpets in the world are woven by Iranian weavers, Jalaleddin Bassam told IRNA.
The country exported about $340 million worth of carpets during March 2006-January 2007, he explained. Studies indicate that carpet export dropped during March 2007-January 2008, the official said, calling for planning to offset the loss.
He attributed the price hike for Iranian carpet to high labor costs elaborating that the price of Iranian carpets has increased two and a half-fold in recent years.
Also the large number of middlemen contributed to the price hike, he added.
“Close to 1.2 million people are involved in weaving carpets, kelims, rugs and jajims (a traditional hand-woven floor covering). In addition, about 300,000 are engaged in related industries and sales.“
As per data for the year to March 2007, about 5.8 million square meters of carpets were woven nationwide, Bassam underlined.
Near 83 percent of domestic carpets are exported and the rest are sold domestically, he pointed out.
Unfortunately, some of carpet producers use inferior dyes, the official said. If the trend continues, the country would lose its global reputation, he warned.

Some 32 trillion rials will be earmarked for the water sector in the year from March 20, Deputy Energy Minister for Water Affairs Rasoul Zargar said.
According to IRNA, Zargar noted that the amount will be reserved for dam construction, water and waste water as well as hydroelectric projects.
“Growth rate of investment in the water sector will increase 20 percent in the Iranian year to March 2009,“ he said.
The official announced that special attention has been paid to implementing irritation networks and dredging. Some five trillion rials have been earmarked for expediting such projects.
Referring to the status of water projects in the March 2008-2009 budget bill, he noted that President Mahmud Ahmadinejad is against increasing water rates in the next Iranian year.
He stated that given the president’s determination, water rates will not increase and the graded system of charging for water consumption will be pursued as in the previous year.
“Precipitation was 140 billion square meters (85mm) during September 9, 2006 to January 20 2007, showing a 20 percent decline compared to the amount for the previous year which ended March 20, 2006,“ he said.
The official underlined that in some regions such as Tehran, Qom and Sistan-Baluchestan precipitation was higher than those in previous years while in the provinces of East Azarbaijan, West Azarbaijan and Charmahal-Bakhtiari the rate dropped 50 percent.
Given the freezing weather conditions in the current year, he stated, “Although we had more snowfall this winter, every 10 centimeter of snow is equal to one centimeter of rain.“
He anticipated that precipitation in the form of rain would be 10 to 15 percent less that the amount in normal year.