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Conclusion:

As it is evident from the set of economic policy initiatives, Iran is moving from an originally inward oriented economic structure to a more liberalized and open market structure that wants to interact with the rest of the world. In fact, the Third Five-Year Plan was the first policy document since the 1979 Revolution which declared "outward orientation" as one of the plan's objectives. However, existing disagreements and debates underline that the country's political forces are not fully prepared to pay the social and political price of this transition. Consequently, some of the related processes will remain unbalanced.

This imbalance will be further intensified by the challenges in Iran's domestic political picture as well as tensions caused by regional confrontations and crises. Therefore, the desired process of restructuring might actually take much longer than many expect. In this context, it should be underlined that the political process of democratization and its related phenomena will create short-term tensions in Iran's business environment. Notwithstanding, a sustainable democratization will have positive long-term effects on business conditions and the economic structure.

From an economic point of view, while macro-economic performance has the potential of remaining positive, current economic challenges, especially unemployment will continue to create social tensions. Therefore, one of the key signposts of economic improvement in Iran will be the government's handling of the unemployment issue. Connected to this is the need for a sustained increase in capital formation, especially from the private sector, hence the importance of attraction of investment from domestic and foreign private sectors. To achieve this, the government will further continue to put forward initiatives aimed at improving the country's overall investment climate, however, success in this field will depend on so many other political factors some of which are outside the control of the Iranian government.

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