Iran's Industrial Development and Renovation Organization (IDRO) will offer shares of 150 industrial units to private investors by the end of the current Iranian year.

Mehdi Lori Amini, director for investment and shares of IDRO, says the organization had privatized 140 of its companies worth about 2,000 billion rials ($200 million) in the past.

Article 44 of the Iranian Constitution stipulates that the country's economic system shall be based on public, cooperative and private sectors.

According to the Article, all large-scale industries, mother industries, foreign trade, large mines, banking, insurance, power supply, dams and large irrigation channels, radio and television, post, telegraph and telephone, aviation, shipping, roads, rails, refineries and the like are public property and under the guidance of the government.

A 2004 amendment to the Article, however, has set in motion a ten-year plan to privatize eighty percent of Iran's state-owned assets.

Amini went on to say that some 290 companies are under the control of the IDRO.

IDRO was established in 1967 to develop the industry sector and to accelerate the industrialization process of the country. It has become one of Iran's largest holding company in recent years.

DB/SC/DT