Economy

Iranwire – Iranians are so strapped for cash and badly affected by Iran’s soaring inflation and high unemployment rates that they are unable to purchase a simple gift such as socks to celebrate Father’s Day. The vice president of the Tehran Knitwear and Socks Union announced that in previous years, people often chose socks as gifts for their fathers to celebrate the …

Iranwire – The Iran-China 25-year cooperation deal has made headlines over the past few years, sparking public anger in Iran and prompting concerns overseas. But the disquiet was not limited to critics of the regime. The Iranian think-tank Resistance Economy has published a new article on the possible long-term ramifications of the deal, entitled Explaining China’s Debt Trap Diplomacy and Doctrines for …

Al-Monitor -Ramazan Sharif, the spokesperson for the media department of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), addressed the leak of an audio file that includes the force’s former commander speaking about corruption.  The audio was published by US-funded Radio Farda. In the nearly hour-long audio file, former head of the IRGC Mohammad Ali Jaffari can be heard speaking with IRGC economic affairs deputy Sadegh …

Al-Arabia – Iraq is $1.6 billion in arrears on its payments for imports of Iranian gas, its acting electricity minister has said, urging Washington to allow cash payments despite its Tehran sanctions. Despite its immense oil and gas reserves, Iraq remains dependent on imports to meet its energy needs, and neighboring Iran currently supplies a third of its gas and …

Iranwire – A spokesman for the Iranian parliament’s Budget Reconciliation Committee announced that two trillion tomans (over $477 million) has been allocated to complete unfinished prayer houses, and that the Khatam-al-Anbiya Construction Headquarters, an affiliate of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), can receive this amount in the form of crude oil any time it wishes. According to the spokesman, …

Iranwire – Gold-plated baby bottles and pacifiers, strollers costing 30 million tomans ($710) and baby bedrooms decorated by interior designers; these are among the sismuni, or items for newborns, that have become fashionable among affluent people in Iranian society. An IranWire citizen journalist, who has gone shopping for baby supplies, has written about Instagram pages items selling “luxury” baby items. …

Iranwire – The verdict in a massive corruption case involving the Iran Petrochemical Commercial Company (PCC) was announced on September 5, 2021. But nearly three years after proceedings first got under way, the details remained shrouded in mystery. We were told at the time that 15 named defendants had been sentenced to a total of 180 years in prison, linked to the embezzlement of …

Iran-HRM – An Iranian teacher, Mostafa Ranjbaran, a biology teacher in Minab, southern Iran committed suicide due to unbearable economic pressures. In a tweet on Thursday, February 3, Mohammad Habibi, a member of the board of directors of the Iran Teachers Trade Association, called “these suicides among teachers, workers, retirees and students” as “a kind of systematic murder” and that …

Al-Monitor – Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has been in office for almost six months, and addressing the economic ills of the country has certainly been the government’s top priority. However, drafting appropriate policies is only one piece of a complex puzzle to improve economic conditions. Many experts agree that one problem is the lack of a clear economic doctrine. While criticizing the …

Iranwire – The verdict in a massive corruption case involving the Iran Petrochemical Commercial Company (PCC) was announced on September 5, 2021. But nearly three years after proceedings first got under way, the details remained shrouded in mystery. We were told at the time that 15 named defendants had been sentenced to a total of 180 years in prison, linked to the embezzlement of …