TEHRAN, July 22: Iran’s government will try to avoid rationing gasoline from Sept 23 by seeking to dip into dollar reserves to pay for fuel imports, a member of parliament said on Saturday.

Parliament has cut the budget for gasoline imports in the year to March 2007, prompting the oil minister to say Tehran would have to stop buying in gasoline shipments and start petrol rationing on Sept 23.

Iran's final decision on how to cope with the budget cut is being keenly awaited by European and Asian gasoline traders who send a gasoline tanker to Iranian quaysides every two days.

The world's fourth biggest crude exporter has to import about 40 per cent of the 70 million litres of gasoline it burns each day owing to a lack of refinery capacity.—Reuters