IRNA -- The Expediency Council on Saturday announced new decisions to implement the privatization drive and ceding economic affairs to the private sector. So far, the Expediency Council made public its decision to revise articles 43 and 44 of the Constitution which had called for monopoly of the state over economic affairs. The Management and Planning Organization (MPO) has drawn up a 20-year strategy for economic, social and cultural development which is implementable only through privatization. The Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei forwarded the 20-year perspective to the three branches of the government to take effect from 2005 to 2025.
| Wonder if they'll follow the Russian model and let the apparatchiks buy everything at cut-rate prices? |
The Expediency Council assigned the government to adopt transparent mechanisms for ceding economic affairs to the public citing the stock exchange mechanism in order to, what the body said, `provide the public with equal opportunity`. "Shares of the big enterprises should be ceded to the public through the stock exchange and the cooperatives enjoy preference to the private sector," the Expediency Council said. The proceeds coming from the sale of the enterprises should be deposited in the State Treasury to be channeled to the infrastructural projects, the top decision making body said. |