Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has ordered that 20 per cent of oil and gas revenues should in future be set aside for a new investment fund, curbing the government’s ability to use this income to fund populist policies.

The order is part of a set of mandatory economic, social and political guidelines the top leader set for populist president Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad to be included in the country’s next five-year development plan which runs from 2010 to 2015.