TEHRAN, Feb 1: Iran will Impose a 20-pcr cent tax on all imports starting March 21, the beginning of the Iranian new year, President Alt Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said Sunday, reports AFP.

The President told a news conference the tax, which will be added to already existing tariffs, aimed at supporting domestic production.

Iranian imports rose to 28 billion dollar in the 1991-92 fiscal year, ending in March, but were expected to show a five billion dollar decline for the current fiscal year, according to experts' forecasts.

The experts said the drop would continue into the new fiscal year due to serious financial difficulties currently facing Iran.

The freeing up of imports after the end of the Iran-Iraq

war in 1988, encouraged by an official dollar exchange rate some 20 times lower than the market rate, had created ma-, jor difficulties for Iranian firms unable to compete with lower-priced and better quality foreign imports.

Rafsanjani further said that the Constitution's supervisory council would review the possibility of foreign investments in Iran.

The council, he added, would decide on the possibility of authorising foreign companies to acquire up to 100 per cent of an Iranian firm's capital, an issue under debate here for the past several months.

"If the council decides that it violates the Constitution, foreign investments will remain limited to 49 per cent," he said.