President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has acknowledged publicly for the first time that tumbling oil prices are hurting Iran’s fragile economy, a sensitive subject for the leader critics have accused of mismanaging the country’s finances, state media reported Wednesday. Oil prices have plunged more than 60 percent since the summer as a faltering global economy reduces demand. Ahmadinejad said that will force the government of the world’s fourth largest oil exporter to make painful spending cuts, official news agency IRNA quoted Ahmadinejad as saying. “Suppose we plan to base next year’s budget on $30 per barrel of oil; we have to leave a major part of our projects behind. But we are obliged to set it on $30-$35 because we do not decide the price of oil on the global market,” the president said.
