Iran to Focus on Reviving Devastated Economy

Recovering from eight years of fighting, Iran will devote the second decade of its Islamic revolution to rebuilding the war-devastated nation, Parliament Speaker Hashemi Rafsanjani said Friday.

Addressing tens of thousands of worshipers at Tehran University, Rafsanjani said the next decade of the fundamentalist-led Islamic revolution will be “the decade of construction and economic independence.”

He said war-devastated Iran has “all the potential needed to step in that direction,” Iran’s Islamic Republic News Agency quoted him as saying.

Iran this week began celebrating the 10th year of its Islamic revolution and the return to Tehran from exile of Iran’s supreme leader, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. It was the first time in eight years the celebration was not held under the shadow of combat and followed the August cease-fire with Iraq.

Two senior Iranian officials echoed Rafsanjani’s call for economic reconstruction.

Central Bank Governor Majid Qasemi said Iran is on the verge of economic revival and will borrow from abroad to finance viable projects. It was the first time in almost a decade that a senior official confirmed that Tehran will solicit large loans from Western money markets.

Earlier, Oil Minister Gholamreza Aghazadeh said in New York that his country plans to raise $3 billion in foreign loans in the next five years to set up “revenue-producing projects,” the news agency of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries reported Friday. The report was monitored in Manama, Bahrain.

Khomeini had banned such loans when he took power and established an Islamic regime.

Iran almost entirely self-financed its war with Iraq, while the Baghdad government remains heavily in debt, especially to Arab Persian Gulf states and Japanese banks.

Aghazadeh added that Iran is close to agreement with the Soviet Union on the export of Iranian natural gas once a price has been agreed upon.

The absence of ties with the United States has pushed Iran to develop closer economic links with Moscow and its East European allies.