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A Look at Iran’s Economy Last Week

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NCRI – According to Iranian regime’s Ministry of Roads and Urban Development, 33 percent of Iranian people, nearly 26 millions, live below poverty line.

Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, regime’s mayor of Tehran and candidate in regime’s sham presidential election, had previously spoken of 25 million absolutely poor Iranians who can’t even afford their daily meals. Besides, such figures are usually less than the real ones when announced by regime officials.

The report released by regime’s Ministry of Roads and Urban Development points to yet another significant figure, saying “Average households need to save at least one third of their income for 96 years so they can own a house.”

It would be worthwhile if we compare the figure to that of other countries and find out how long average employees in other countries should save so they can buy a house. Well, it definitely differs based on the country. In Canada, for instance, it takes about ten years so people can provide necessary financial resources to get their hands on a house. In Hong Kong, which is rated among the most expensive cities with one of the lengthiest home-buying periods, it takes 18 years to buy a house. The figure is 12 for Sydney, Australia, and in some cities such as Toronto, Canada, it takes only seven years for average households to own a house by saving one third of their income. On Average, it takes 14 years in industrial countries to buy a house, according to the report released by regime’s Ministry of Roads and Urban Development.

Iranian regime, however, has raised this figure to 96, meaning that some parts of the population won’t be able to obtain a house for generations if the situation remains the same.

Another issue on the front burner last week was the continued and increased recession in Iran’s stock market.

According to state-run Hamshahri newspaper on July 12, “since the start of the economic slowdown to date, stock exchange companies’ profit forecasts have fallen 20 thousand billion tomans, equivalent to 5.5 billion dollars. Over the past month alone, banking industry’s profit forecast fell nearly one thousand billion tomans.”

“Statistical data shows that stock exchange companies’ profit forecasts, which had reached 59,243 billion tomans in December 2013, have fallen 19,452 billion tomans to 39,791 at the end of Spring.” The report also says that the banking industry has suffered the most so that “over the past month alone, eleven banks listed on the stock exchange cut their profit forecasts 1043 billion tomans.” (State-run Hamshahri newspaper, July 12, 2017)

Although the main reason behind stock exchange downturn is the country’s deep economic recession, but regime officials claim that there’s been increase in exports. The fact, however, is that increase in exports is only related to oil, while in other areas it’s quite the opposite.

The Iraanian regime has held back Iran’s economy in such a way that the countries that were economically far behind Iran forty years ago, have now got a bigger share of world’s markets. State-run ‘Donya-ye-Eghtesad’ newspaper points to this same issue on July 12, saying “a significant part of country’s export is dedicated to raw material, while industrial products, advanced ones in particular, account for a very small part of the export. On average over the past ten years, advanced industrial products have accounted for 57, 48, and 45 percent of industrial exports in Philippines, Singapore, and Malaysia respectively. For Iran, however, the figure is about five percent.“ (State-run Donya-ye-Eghtesad newspaper, July 12, 2017)

Another aspect of Iran’s deep economic downturn is showing itself in housing sector and its related industries, with closure of more than 700 quarries over the last year being part of that.The figure is given by Abolghasem Shafiei, head of Iran Stone Association, who maintains that there’s no investment security in Iran’s mining sector.“Today, the Iranian economy’s ship is stranded, and it’s not going to be resolved by money, either”, says Shafiei, adding “the final price of the stone produced in our production units is much higher compared to other countries’, so that Turkey, for instance, produces much cheaper stones than ours. This is why we don’t have a colorful presence in export markets and our stone production units are operating with less than 50 percent of their capacity.”

Considering the sanctions and economic slowdown, investment in Iran is associated with risks. Head of Iran Stone Association explicitly says in this regard “unfortunately, they (investors) don’t trust Iran’s market, saying that the regulations in the country is subject to change everyday thereby making it very difficult for them to do any business here.”

“I brought heads of nearly 14 Chinese stone associations to Iran, none of whom were willing to invest in Iran after checking out the country’s economic situation.” (State-run Fartak news, July 9, 2017)

The interesting point is, however, that Khamenei’s resistance economy accounts for nothing and is of no use now, and no one is willing to defend it, either.

State-run ‘Donya-ye-Eghtesad’ quoted last week an economic expert as saying “this group’s impression of resistance economy is somewhat inward looking. This way of thinking has shaped the overall decisions made in the country over past years. It’s now 37 years that the group believing in an inward looking economy claims that they’ve managed to run country’s economy to date. What they don’t mention, however, is that they’ve run the economy with nearly zero percent growth, with country’s resources, even the most vital ones like water, being degraded. If we don’t change the way we run the country’s economy, there’ll be much tougher days ahead, and like it was previously said, its consequences are not going to remain in economic area alone.” (State-run Donya-ye-Eghtesad newspaper, July 8, 2017)