“Public companies worth around 1 quadrillion rials ($26.66 billion) had been privatized before Rouhani took office in August 2013, whereas during his four-year term, privatization deals worth 420 trillion rials ($11.2 billion) were signed,” Mehr News Agency also quoted Mir-Ali Ashraf Abdollah Pouri-Hosseini as saying.
Earlier this month, Minister of Economic Affairs and Finance Ali Tayyebnia expressed satisfaction with the “quality” of transfers on his watch, “because they were handed over to the real private sector, though the number of such transfers is not acceptable”.
“Before the 11th government [Rouhani’s first presidential term], 56% of transfers were meant to clear government debts, which is the easiest way of ownership transfer. A short government bill was enough to ensure an overnight handover of a multimillion dollar business without other requirements such as holding auctions,” Financial Tribune quoted him as saying.
Tayyebnia noted that only two of the transfer deals brokered over the past four years were aimed at clearing government debts, both of which were carry-overs of the bills approved by the previous government and according to the laws ratified by the parliament. “No swap arrangement was initiated under the Rouhani government,” he said.