Eurasia Press & News
TEHRAN (FNA)- Managing Director of the National Iranian Petrochemical Company (NIPC) Gholam Hossein Nejabat said that 20 subsidiaries of the NIPC have been earmarked for privatization.
He added that so far Carbon Iran, Farabi, Abadan, Khark, Isfahan, Arak, Shiraz, Razi and Polika Karaj have been wholly privatized and that 52 of the 81 subsidiaries of the National Iranian Petrochemical Company have been semi-privatized.
Nejabat told journalists that more companies would be privatized if Iran Privatization Organization approved the transfer of other petrochemical companies as a single block or holding companies.
The question of privatization has become a hotly debated issue in Iran, as there are frequent complaints about the lack of efficiency in the multitude of state-owned companies.
Recently the Head of Iran’s Expediency Council, former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, has stressed the need for wide scale privatization in the real sense of the world.
Rafsanjani considered proper management as the most important factor for sound economic foundations and added, “There is a wide gap between the private sector and the government in this respect and we need to move toward real privatization and move towards free market economy in Iran.”
The head of the Expediency Council said that the main objective of privatization is taking maximum advantage of the country’s human and material resources, adding, “Providing an appropriate atmosphere for the performance of the private sector would solve two major problems of the country, namely lowering unemployment and inflation.”
