TEHRAN- The representatives of private sector discussed the issues related to the current status of the country’s stock market with the head of Securities and Exchange Organization (SEO) during a meeting at the place of Tehran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture (TCCIMA) on Tuesday.

As published on the website of TCCIMA, the private sector mentioned their viewpoints on the advantages and weaknesses of the capital market and offered their suggestions for the better performance of this market to the SEO Head Hasan Qalibaf-Asl during the meeting.

Offering oil at Iran Energy Exchange (IRENEX) via salaf bonds was one of the major issues mentioned by the TCCIMA Head Masoud Khansari, as he said that the final decision should be made about this issue and the government should announce that if such sales will be finally one or not.

“We expected that before announcing this issue suddenly, it would have been examined exactly and its different aspects would have been studies”, the official lamented.

Last week, during a meeting of the Supreme Council of Economic Coordination, attended by President Hassan Rouhani, Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, Judiciary Chief Ebrahim Raisi, the administration’s top economic figures including Central Bank of Iran (CBI)’s Governor Abdolnasser Hemmati, Head of Planning and Budget Organization (PBO) Mohammad-Bagher Nobakht, Vice-President for Economic Affairs Mohammad Nahavandian, and Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh, it had been decided to draw up plans to counter oil embargo and redirect the high liquidity, which is partly blamed for the high inflation rate.

After the meeting, it was reported that the heads of three branches had made an agreement on the plan for the pre-selling of oil.

It is said that based on this plan, the government is to sell 220 million barrels of oil through issuing parallel salaf bonds in a course of one year.

A standard parallel salaf is an Islamic contract similar to futures, with the difference being that the contract’s total price must be paid in advance. 

While the details of the mentioned plan have not been still announced, it has drawn many criticisms.

The TCCIMA head further referred to the plan for reforming the banking system, which is currently under investigation by the related committee in the parliament, and said, “TCCIMA had some negotiations with Farhad Nili, Iran’s former representative in the World Bank, two weeks ago, so that the necessary investigations would be made and we could offer the private sector’s viewpoints to the parliament within three months.”

SEO Head Hasan Qalibaf-Asl, for his part, referred to the current status of the capital market and said that now this market is close to its real status in the national economy.

The official announced that 4.5 million new trading accounts have been opened in the stock market since the beginning of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20), while the figure was just 820,000 in the whole past year.

He further announced the capital market’s readiness for financing the projects conducted by private enterprises.

MA/MA