The Iranian government will present a bill to the parliament for distributing 4 billion U.S. dollars of foreign exchange reserves to import gasoline, Iran's local Fars News Agency reported on Sunday.

The Iranian government would use the money to "satiate the country's consumption needs of gasoline in the second half of the current (Iranian) year," said Kamal Daneshyar, chairman of the parliament's Energy Commission.

In February, Iran's parliament approved a budget for the year to March 2007 that slashed the government's requested amount for gasoline imports from 4 billion to 2.5 billion dollars.

That scaled-down budget is predicted to have been used up in the first half of the current Iranian year, which began on March 21, due to increasing consumption and higher import prices.

"As the issue is very crucial, it is predicted that the government would present the bill with double-urgency and that the parliament would ratify verification of the bill with single urgency," Daneshyar was quoted as saying.

Although Iran holds the world's second largest oil reserves, it lacks refinery capacity and has to import more than 40 percent of its daily demand of 70 million litres of gasoline.

Iran's parliament and the government are still discussing options to solve the problem, including rationing and raising the prices of subsidized gasoline.

Source: Xinhua