President Rouhani submits draft ‘budget of resistance’ to parliament

He gave the value of the draft budget at about 4,845 trillion rials ($38.8 billion at the free market rate) for the next Iranian year which starts on March 20, 2020.

"Next year, similar to the current year, our budget is a budget of resistance and perseverance against sanctions," he told the parliament in Tehran on Sunday.

"This budget announces to the world that despite sanctions, we will manage the country, especially in terms of oil," he added.

The budget, he said, has taken the US "maximum pressure" campaign against the Islamic Republic into account. “This is a budget to resist sanctions ... with the least possible dependence on oil.”

The president stressed that the enemies have failed in their plot to wreck Iran’s economy and that the government has taken big steps toward prosperity and progress.

"Our enemies - the US and the Zionist regime - thought that with severe sanctions they would make the nation unable to build the country and the government impotent to enforce the law and budget, but they have been disappointed to this day and will continue to be so."

The new budget includes a 15 percent raise in the wages of government employees.

President Rouhani submitted the new budget after deciding last month to raise gasoline prices by 50 percent.

The president expressed hope Sunday that the measure would help Iran's nascent self-sufficiency in gasoline continue.

By March, he said, gasoline production in Iran will reach 110 million liters per day, twice the volume the country produced six years ago when his administration took office.

Iran has been smarting under the most draconian American sanctions which aim to bring the country's oil exports down to zero.