TEHRAN -- Cooperatives Minister Ali Soufi said on Saturday that that the Cooperatives Ministry plans to provide 45,000 housing units to applicants by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20, 2003).

Soufi told a press conference that these housing units will be built according to standards set by the Housing and Urban Development Ministry and will be less than 120 square meters in area and cost 800,000 rials per meter.

The project will be financed using funds allocated to the Housing Ministry according to Clause 15 of this year' national budget and which will be supplied by banks, the minister said.

Soufi also rejected the claim that the cooperatives sector only provides 0.34 percent of the employment opportunities in the country. He said that according to current statistics, about 10 percent of the country's workforce are employed by cooperatives. The minister added that there are about 44,000 active cooperatives in the country.

He said that the ministry has been continually on the verge of disintegration or merger since its founding. He also noted that most of the country's officials do not attach great importance to this ministry.

Creating jobs through cooperatives unions, enhancing the competitiveness of small and medium-size private sector businesses, and increasing the purchasing power of cooperatives' staffs are among the ministry's top priorities this year, the minister declared.

Soufi said there are about 800,000 cooperatives in 93 countries around the world with 725 million members.

Unfortunately, cooperatives are not supported as much as the public and privates sectors in Iran, the minister continued.

He said that banks will provide about 9 trillion rials of interest-free loans to applicants for the new housing this year.