Gholam Reza Heydari Kord Zanganeh, head of the state-run Privatisation Organisation, said the divestment cut the government’s part of the gross domestic produce to around 45 percent from 60 percent before the programme.

‘We have privatised 63 billion dollars worth of government assets since 2005,’ when the privatisation programme was launched, Kord Zanganeh told reporters at a press conference.

He said when the plan kicked off, the targeted government assets were worth 120 billion dollars.

‘I believe we have executed 50 percent of the plan,’ Kord Zanganeh said, adding ‘the government’s part in economy which was 60 percent before is now 40 to 45 percent.’

In 2006 supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei urged the government to push ahead with the stuttering privatisation drive which envisages selling 80 percent of state-owned companies, mainly in the banking, media, transport and mineral sectors.

In most stake sales, the government hands out 20 percent of the equity in targeted companies as ‘justice’ shares to the poor and retains 20 percent.

Of the remaining 10 percent, five percent is given to employees of the company and the rest is offered publicly to set a price prior to the majority stake sale.

Economists have criticised President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government for dragging its feet over privatisation as several non-governmental retirement funds, which have been buyers of these companies, are run by state-appointed management.

Economists have criticised the sell-off process, saying the stakes sold in most such equity divestments do not end up with the real private sector.

The feasibility of the plan was further questioned when in late September a majority stake in Iran’s only state-owned telecommunications company was sold to a private consortium in an eight-billion-dollar deal.

Reports surfacing in the media suggesting that one of the consortium members belonged to a branch of the elite Revolutionary Guards Corps prompted Iran’s Inspection Organisation to probe the deal.

The Guards Corps, set up to defend the country from internal and external threats, has become a major economic force in recent years because of its controversial and overwhelming presence in the energy, finance and construction sectors.