Tehran, Nov 1, IRNA � President Hassan Rouhani said his government primarily focused on economic and foreign policy issues at the beginning of his tenure in a bid to overcome certain critical situations.


He made the remarks here Tuesday while addressing the parliament session which discussed credentials of three ministers proposed by the president to take over ministries of Culture and Islamic Culture, Sports and Youth Affairs and Education.

Outlining some of the problems his government faced upon inauguration, he said as the first cabinet after the end of imposed war his cabinet had to tackle the problem of 40 percent inflation rate and minus 8 growth rate.

He said his cabinet in fact had to deal with a semi-crisis situation in the country so it was forced to focus on economy and foreign policy issues first.

However, the president stressed, thanks to the government�s wise policies in macro-economy areas, the inflation rate has now dropped to a single-digit figure and below 8 percent.

President Rouhani went to the parliament Tuesday morning to take part in its confidence vote session for three proposed ministers.

The parliamentarians are to cast their votes for or against the ministers proposed by President Rouhani to take over ministries of Education, Culture and Islamic Guidance and Sports and Youth Affairs.

First Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri and a number of cabinet members are accompanying the president.

President Rouhani informed the parliament last week of his choices for the three ministries.

He proposed Reza Salehi Amiri for the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, Masoud Soltanifar for the Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs and Fakhreddin Ahmadi Danesh Ashtiani for the Ministry of Education.

Ali Jannati, Mahmoud Goudarzi and Ali Asghar Fani served in the posts respectively before their resignation.

By IRNA