Khatami changes key economic officials

Iran's President Mohammad Khatami, criticised by opponents for his handling of the economy, on Sunday named new ministers to handle economic and labour policy, the official IRNA news agency said.
In a letter submitted to parliament Khatami proposed current Labour and Social Affairs Minister Safdar Hosseini to replace Tahmasb Mazaheri as minister of economy and finance.
Nasser Khaleghi, a graduate of mechanical engineering and a lawmaker in the current parliament was nominated to replace Hosseini as head of the Labour and Social Affairs Ministry.
Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi, who presented the nominations to parliament, said the head of the Management and Planning Organisation (MPO) Mohammad Sattarifard would also be replaced, IRNA said.
Unlike the ministerial posts, the head of the MPO, which drafts the national budget and medium-term economic programmes, does not require approval by parliament.
"This is intended to bring more co-ordination and integration in the last year of the current government," IRNA quoted Abtahi as telling reporters.
Analysts said the new appointments would have little impact on economic policy in what remains of Khatami's second term of office, which runs out in mid-2005. The reform-minded cleric is not eligible for re-election.
"Disputes between senior economic officials forced Khatami to change his team, but there won't be any change in the president's economic policies," said economic analyst Saeed Leylaz, who called the reshuffle as "untimely and meaningless."
Critics say Khatami's government has focused too heavily on trying to achieve political and social reform instead of tackling economic problems facing Iran's 66 million people.
Job creation, in particular, has fallen well behind government targets, causing unemployment to hover stubbornly around 16 percent.
The ministerial nominations are expected to be debated and approved in the remaining five weeks of the current parliament which is dominated by pro-reform Khatami supporters.
Conservative opponents of Khatami won control of parliament in elections in February which reformists said were rigged after hundreds of candidates were barred from standing.
Mazaheri, who joined Khatami's cabinet at the start of the president's second term in 2001, has focused heavily in recent months on the need to accelerate privatisation in a country where roughly 70 percent of the economy remains in state hands.