In recent decades, the budgeting process in Iran has been such that the budget’s capacity to function as the country’s most important fiscal policy document has continuously declined. In other words, budgeting has been utilized by successive administrations solely as an instrument to balance revenues and expenditures rather than setting long-term economic policies.
The allocation of the lion’s share of budgets to current expenditures rather than infrastructure spending greatly explains why the Iranian economy is not moving toward its sought destination. “The infrastructure programs are means of pursuing the development objectives. This is while [such programs] are always marginalized and governments only take heed of current expenditures,” leading economic daily Donya-e Eqtesad quoted Gholam Hossein Shafei, the head of Iran's Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture, as saying Jan. 18.
