"Prior to the announcement of this principle, the country's capital market was not very developed and with the introduction of principle 44 of the Constitution we see introduction of large companies in the mining, banking, insurance and refining sectors.” The head of the Privatization Organization added.

Efforts towards improving privatizations

“Since 2001 about 150  trillion tomans worth of assets has been transferred, of which only 4%, equaling about 5 trillion tomans, has been challenged, but unfortunately the image of privatization and privatization organization in the society does not fit this value.” He added.

Saleh said that 95% of the Privatization Organization's total privatizations were unchallenged, including the Gulf Petrochemical Holding Company, which attracted about € 2 billion in investment after the privatization.

"Of course, we are trying to eliminate the 5% of the offerings that have faced challenges and to help improve the process of privatization." The head of the Privatization Organization continued.

Pointing out that most of the privatizations  made by the organization have led to improved efficiency and productivity, he acknowledged: increasing the efficiency of physical, human and natural resources, pursuing social justice by involving people in the capital market and entrusting the economy to the people are the most important goals of principle 44 of the Constitution.

Regarding the improvement of efficiency and productivity of the privatized companies, Saleh also said: “based on the surveys carried out by this organization 3 years before and 3 years after the transfer of the companies, we judge whether this transfer Has it been successful or not. In this regard, according to the surveys taken together, the indicators show an improvement of 15% in the areas of employment, efficiency and productivity.”

The Organization aims for transparency

The head of the Privatization Organization also said about the organization's plans for the coming year: Transparency and public information are among the issues that are on the agenda of future privatization activities. Accordingly, we intend to announce any transfer, and the purpose of the anouncments is to raise public awareness through the media, as we believe that one of the conditions for competition in the transfer is to increase audience information and reduce information rent.

"That's why we have asked our colleagues in the privatization organization to turn it into a glass room, so that no information is out of the public eye."

“One of the steps we have taken is to include various information such as the approvals by the divestiture board, evaluation by the official experts of the judiciary, publication of the offering announcements, method of selection of the purchasers, and so on. The list of assignments by province in this year and next year is also available on the website.” Saleh added.

Offerings would be done through the stock exchange

"With regard to the divestitures, there are several capacities stated in the law and we will try to do all the divestitures and privatizations through the capital market, and even in this regard we are trying to launch a board in stock exchange through which all the bids and negotiations should be conducted.” He said.

The regulations of purchaser qualification would be observed

“Purchaser qualification is also one of the challenges in the privatization, which is one of the priorities of the Privatization Organization next year. For this reason, the bylaws of purchaser qualification have been approved by the divesture board and this regulation has also been included in the new Privatization Organization Advertisements.” The head of the Privatization Organization stated.

"One of the disadvantages of the privatization process over the past years has been that, for example, we have privatized a company in a production chain," he said. “Instead of providing one part of the supply chain, we are planning to offer the whole supply chain in the stock exchange and do the offerings through this approach.”

"By doing so, we will contribute to greater transparency of government assets, and after being accepted int the stock exchange, companies will be required to submit reports and information to the public," he added.” In the meantime, we need to move towards equality in order to create competition for the implementation of the privatization policies in the country.”

Disambiguation about previous privatizations

The head of the privatization Organization  acknowledged: "In addition, we have announced about 2,500 billion tomans of state-owned companies' stocks, which we intend to offer these share through block trades in the Stock Exchange and off-exchange.

On the reason for the delays in the privatization agency's bids this year, Saleh said: “it was because in the first step, we tried to resolve the uncertainties, and then to offer the shares of the companies.”

Regarding the divestiture of the two Esteghlal and Persepolis clubs, The head of the Privatization Organization also said: “One of the challenges in the privatization is that there is no proper preparation for the divestiture. Accordingly, the necessary preparations must be made for the transfer of the two clubs, one of which is to provide transparent information to the public.”

"We have had several meetings with the Ministry of Sport and Youth Affairs to prepare the mechanism for the transferring of Esteghlal and Persepolis to the private sector," he said.

The head of the Privatization Organization said about the liberalization of justice stocks: “So far, about 26 trillion tomans of government assets have been allocated to more than 49 million people in the form of justice stocks. Therefore, it should be planned in a way that after the liberalization, the stock will be managed by the people. In addition, the liberalization of justice stocks should not harm stock exchange’s trading.

"A letter has been issued by the President to the Supreme Leader for the liberalization of justice stocks, and if the supreme leader agrees, the stocks of justice will be liberalized," He added.

"The mechanism for liberalization of the justice stocks is in the form of provincial investment companies and tradable funds,” The head of the Privatization Organization said.

Regarding the payment of dividends of justice stocks, he said: "Necessary conclusions have been made in this regard and accordingly, from the third of Esfand (February 22), after the end of the elections, dividends of justice stocks will be distributed among the beneficiaries."