"As regards the next year budget, we are moving to decrease the share of oil revenues to the minimum as much as possible. An oil-based budget is not reasonable since we are a great and advanced country and will decrease our spending," Ahmadinejad told reporters on Wednesday.
He added that the government has cut a large amount of unnecessary spending and focused on key and necessary spending.
Many Iranian officials believe that the West's ban on Iranian oil supplies will help Iranian economy end its dependence on oil revenues.
Earlier this month, a senior Iranian legislator had said that officials plan to decrease reliance on oil revenues in the next year state budget to one million barrels a day, adding that the country will try to increase its income in the non-oil export sector, instead.
"Apparently, the government wants to decrease the 1392 (the next Iranian year starting on March 21) state budget's reliance on oil exports to one million barrels a day," member of the parliament's Budget Planning Commission Gholamreza Mesbahi Moqaddam told FNA.
In March 2011, a senior Iranian economic official announced that the country plans to boost its non-oil exports to $301 billion within the next five years.
Iranian Deputy Commerce Minister Hamid Safdel stated at the time that Iran's non-oil exports, excluding gas condensates, will reach $301 billion in a five-year period.
irna/281
Publish Date: 13 December 2012 - 11:21
Iran plans to decrease the share of oil revenues in its next year state budget, the Iranian president announced on Wednesday.