Iran unveils Kish Stock Exchange

Iran has inaugurated the Kish Stock Exchange in the southern Iranian island to facilitate foreign investment and monetary activities, says the country’s minister of the economy.

Seyyed Shamseddin Hosseini told reporters on Friday that private investors have allocated a building complex to different economic sectors in Kish.

“Iran has made efforts to relax constraining official regulations” to attract more foreign investment, he said, noting that such investments increased 95 percent in the country.

Hosseini also pointed out that Iran has modified and developed general and “key economic policies” during the past years.

Referring to the targeted subsidiary plans, the minister echoed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s prediction that the program would profit economic sectors, adding that it would also save billions of dollars in fuel consumption.

The targeted subsidiary plans will eventually slash all government subsidies in place since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

The implementation of the plan began in the country on Sunday.

President Ahmadinejad said last week that the plans were guaranteed to lead to a better economy, since people would start saving on energy consumption, making it possible to export the extra reserves and pump the money back into the country’s economy.

The president also reasoned that higher prices would encourage people to use less fuel and cause less harm to the environment — especially in heavily-polluted Tehran.

Under the new rationing system, the price of gasoline will rise by fourfold from 1,000 rials (10 cents) per liter to 4,000 rials (40 cents) per liter as of Sunday.

Fuel beyond a person’s quota — which is 50 liters per month — is now sold at 7,000 rials (70 cents) per liter.