Iran will cut military spending to $9 billion a year

Astana. January 18. Silkroadnews – Next financial year (according to the Iranian calendar it begins as of March 21, 2016), Iran will cut one’s military spending at the expense of reduction of funding on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), TASS agency informs.
"The president of Iran came up to Majlis with a bill in which the budget of the Ministry of Defense, Army, General Staff and people’s volunteer corps was increased. However, due to the significant cost savings on the needs of the Revolutionary Guard Corps total spending on the armed forces is reduced”, the publication said.
Thus, the total cost of all the budget items amounts to 952 thousand billion Toman or $307 billion. Among them, $267 billion will be the federal spending and $39 billion - non-state spending. The total amount of the country’s military budget got reduced from about $9.4 billion to nearly $9 billion. Under the proposed budget, the expenditures of the Defense Ministry increased from $900 million to nearly $1.038 billion. Spending on the armed forces (except for IRGC) increased from $1.772 billion to $2.037 billion. Expenses of the IRGC General Staff got cut from more than $5.8 billion to less than $4.9 billion.
People’s volunteer corps, whose number currently reaches 20 million of potential recruits, shall receive next year more than $357 million compared to only $296 million in 2015.
The Joint General Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces shall receive $684 million compared with the previous budget of more than $626 million. The IRGC has its divisions in Air Force, Navy and Air Defense. The Corps controls the largest complex of the Iranian military-industrial complex and the air defense base Khatam Al-Anbiya, a number of major oil and refining companies, banks, research centers.