Iran's Reliance on Oil Income Declining

"Based on the statistics of the custom office … during the first 4 months of the current (Iranian) year (started on March 20-July 20), 70% of payments for imports have been made by the foreign currency earned through non-oil exports," Qazanfari stated , adding that the figure will stand at 60% if gas condensate revenues are excluded.

"That means less reliance on the financial resources gained through crude sales for imports," the minister noted.

In July, Iranian First Vice-President Mohammad Reza Rahimi downplayed the impacts of the West's oil embargo against Iran, and stressed that the country's economy is large enough to withstand and digest pressures.

Speaking at a ceremony to officially announce the volume of foreign investment in Iran, Rahimi pointed to the recent ban on Iranian oil supplies by the European Union, and stated, "The size of Iran's economy has increased up to more than one thousand billion dollars and only 10% of Iran's economy relies on oil."

"At a time when only 10 percent of our economy depends on oil revenues, sanctions against oil would cause self-sufficiency and growth in our domestic production capacity, if they happen at all," Rahimi underscored.

Despite the rules enshrined in the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) entitling every member state, including Iran, to the right of uranium enrichment, Tehran is now under four rounds of UN Security Council sanctions for turning down West's calls to give up its right of uranium enrichment.

Tehran has dismissed West's demands as politically tainted and illogical, stressing that sanctions and pressures merely consolidate Iranians' national resolve to continue the path.

Political observers believe that the United States has remained at loggerheads with Iran mainly over the independent and home-grown nature of Tehran's nuclear technology, which gives the Islamic Republic the potential to turn into a world power and a role model for the other third-world countries.
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