Economy Minister Seyyed Ali Madanizadeh has called for a strategic reorientation of the National Development Fund (NDF), urging the sovereign wealth fund to prioritize large-scale, high-yield investments that can generate foreign currency earnings for the country.
Speaking at a ceremony marking the appointment of the fund's new chairman, Madanizadeh stressed that the NDF should adopt a leveraged approach in deploying its resources, particularly toward upstream oil and gas projects—areas where other domestic financial institutions have limited capacity to operate effectively.
"The fund is at a critical juncture," the minister said, noting that the NDF must play a more decisive role in driving the nation's economic development. He praised the outgoing chairman, Mehdi Ghazanfari, for initiating a significant shift in the fund's investment philosophy, particularly by entering the upstream oil sector after more than a decade of more conservative strategies.
Madanizadeh also acknowledged the efforts of the interim leadership under difficult circumstances and expressed confidence that the new management would continue to pursue the fund's core missions with renewed vigor.
Looking ahead, the minister emphasized that Iran is poised to move beyond its current economic challenges, but warned that sustainable development will require a major commitment to investment. "We have no choice but to focus on large-scale economic projects," he said, adding that the NDF is uniquely positioned to fill the gap left by other financial institutions.
The minister's remarks underscore a broader government push to leverage the NDF's resources for strategic, foreign-currency-generating projects beyond oil and gas, signaling a potential expansion of the fund's mandate to other high-impact sectors of the economy.
