AFP: Iran aims for an annual growth rate of close to eight percent until 2015 under a five-year plan which President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad presented to parliament, a government newspaper said on Monday.
TEHRAN (AFP) — Iran aims for an annual growth rate of close to eight percent until 2015 under a five-year plan which President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad presented to parliament, a government newspaper said on Monday.
But Iran Daily said that Ahmadinejad gave few figures to back up the 2010-2015 plan which he submitted on Sunday based on an inflation rate of about 12 percent.
Annual growth has been running close to five percent over the past 15 years but fell to 2.5 percent in 2009, according to official figures, which indicate inflation dropped to 13 percent last year after skirting 30 percent in 2008.
Iran Daily said the forecast was based on a 65-dollar-a-barrel price for oil, which accounts for 80 percent of Iran's exports. However, the country expects a drop of around 10 percent in the oil sector's share of total exports.
Tehran plans to invest 20 billion dollars a year up until 2015 to develop its oil and gas capacity, according to the paper, which said "foreign and private investments" would be invited to develop Iran's gas industry.
The investment aims primarily to boost the country's refining output, a sector in which Iran currently relies on imports for 11 percent of consumption, according to the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
The target is self-reliance by 2015, Iran Daily said.
On the labour front, the five-year plan aims to bring down unemployment to seven percent from the current official figure of 13 percent by creating almost one million new jobs a year.
