SEMNAN Minister of Housing and Urban Development Ali Abdolalizadeh said here Thursday that President Khatami should receive a medal of honor for having pushed down inflation below 13 percent in the current Iranian year (starting March 20, 2000) despite opposite forecasts of 19 percent by certain experts.

He also termed the plan for pushing down inflation "a great and enterprising effort", adding, the good news on inflation is due to controlling oil revenues, forward looking policies, and tolerating various pressures.

Abdolalizadeh said that the government's plans call for an inflation rate of single digit or under 10 percent for next year.

"In line with the policy, the government has limited the increase in the prices of public services to five percent", the minister stated.

He said that the cabinet rejected the latest proposal for boosting the consumer cost of medicines.

He said the government is planing to significantly boost the private sector's share of the economy.

The government does not rank the projects with the less important ones to be set aside for the private sector, but, believes that any task that can be tackled by the private sector has to be given to them, the minister remarked.

In February, the Governor of Central Bank of Iran (CBI) Mohsen Nourbakhsh, talking on the state of the economy, had said the national budget kept a good balance between the revenues and expenditures adding, general revenues were 21.4 percent higher in the first quarter of the year compared to the same period last year.

Over 91.7 percent of projected revenues were realized, and expenditures were also 17.3 percent higher over the same period, he said, adding that it is expected that the situation will not change until the end of the year (in March).

Nourbakhsh added that this year's gross domestic product (GDP) will hover around 5.2 percent.

He said that 5,428 industrial permits were issued for projects valued at Rls.33,045 billion in the first eight months of the year which was 5.3 percent and 97.9 percent higher in terms of quantity and value respectively compared to the corresponding period last year.

The projects also created about 154,000 job opportunities, he noted.

He put the inflation rate at around 13 percent to 14 percent and unemployment rate at 12.7 percent for the second quarter of the year.

The CBI governor also said that the liquidity of about Rls.225,500 billion rose by 17 percent in the first three quarters of the year.

He concluded by saying that the important factors contributing to higher liquidity were CBI hard currency reserves, as well as the level of outstanding public and private debt.

(IRNA)