Page 32 - IRANRptSep21

Iran aims to privatise 600 companies in current Persian year
Foreign investors, including France’s Total, have withdrawn from Iran’s oil and gas industry since the US reimposed heavy sanctions on the Islamic Republic in May 2018. Under those sanctions, the US initially issued waivers that allowed designated countries to import Iranian crude oil without fear of penalties being pursued by Washington, but in May 2019 it switched to a policy of attempting to drive all oil exports from Iran off world markets. There have since been widely varying reports on how successful Iran has been at exporting oil through grey market channels.
The head of the Iranian Privatisation Organisation (IPO) has announced that some 600 companies are to be fully or partially sold to private buyers in the 2019/2020 Persian calendar year (started March 21), IBENA reported on April 28.
The Rouhani administration is under growing pressure to allow more assets on to the market at a faster rate so that capital can move from the roiled currency markets and back into the local economy. With the Iranian rial (IRR) severely weakened by the US sanctions assault on Iran’s economy and Washington to launch its attempt at fully shutting down Iran’s oil exports on May 2, the government is under heightened pressure to increase efforts to deliver liquidity.
IPO director Mir Ali Ashraf Abdollah Pouri-Hosseini said that of the current block of companies to go up for sale, all the shares would be available to buyers except for 20% in each case, except where otherwise stated. However, it will be an uphill struggle to sell majority stakes in so many businesses, with Pouri-Hosseini noting that across six months of the previous calendar year, only 55 companies were privatised.
“If we can privatise double or triple this amount, still there would be many companies for sale,” he added.
6.2 Debt
Iran - Gross external debt 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
External debt (USD bn)
7.406 7.006 5.441 6.322 7.475 8.481 10.910 9.339 9.031
External debt (% GDP)
3.31 1.28 1.45 1.18 1.94 2.03 2.45 2.05 1.6
Source: World Bank, CEIC
Iran’s foreign debt at ‘nearly zero’
IMF forecasts Iran’s net debt at 44% of GDP
Iran’s deputy minister of economic affairs and finance has said the country’s foreign debts are currently very insignificant at nearly zero, Tasnim News Agency reported on January 20.
Utilising foreign debt could be a good opportunity for the government to meet investment needs inside Iran, Mohammad-Ali Dehqan Dehnavi added.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has estimated that the Iranian government's net debt will reach around $260bn by the end of 2020, equivalent to 44% of Iran's GDP.
Before the reimposition of heavy US sanctions on Tehran in 2018, the net debt stood at less than $118bn.
Muddying the picture, however, is the fact that estimates of how much crude oil Iran manages to sell on the grey market despite US sanctions vary rather widely.
32 IRAN Country Report September 2021 www.intellinews.com