Economy

Iranwire – “Let the government be unified and fall completely into its own hands, so that it can be held responsible for everything, good or bad.” Such was the argument of some of those who preferred to stay at home on Friday, June 18, rather than vote in an election whose outcome they believed was already known. A flicker of …

Al-Monitor – With Iranians heading to the polls to elect a new president later this week, tackling economic challenges is the top priority for many voters. The average Iranian has faced high inflation and economic stagnation over the past few years, and a basic expectation is for the next president to restore some of the lost purchasing power and induce a …

Iranwire – “Half of Iran’s economy does not pay taxes.” So says Abdolnasser Hemmati, the main quasi-reformist candidate in Iran’s 2021 presidential election. In his campaign speeches, the former governor of Iran’s Central Bank has constantly raised the spectre of “stakeholders” and “those people” who have turned their backs on Iran’s economy. In one such tirade, as if in conversation …

Al-Monitor – Iran will quickly scale up its crude oil output if US sanctions are lifted as part of a revived nuclear agreement between Tehran and world powers, a senior official at the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) told state media outlets.  “If sanctions are lifted, the bulk of Iran’s output will be restored within one month, with full output restoration happening …

Iranwire – U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said hundreds of U.S. sanctions on Tehran likely would remain in place even if Iran and the United States return to compliance with the nuclear deal with world powers. Blinken was asked on June 8 during a hearing before a U.S. Senate committee about progress on indirect talks with Iran aimed at …

Iranwire – Even in the chilliest of pre-election atmospheres, the televised presidential candidates’ debates are usually nominally interesting. But last Friday, the first debate of a scheduled seven brought nothing but disillusionment to Iranian economists. The candidates had nothing but the most general and scattered of observations to make on Iran’s ongoing financial crisis. They were united in criticizing the …

Iranwire – The present continuous power outages have alarmed Iranian citizens ahead of the start of the energy use-intensive summer season. In hotter parts of the country, life is very difficult in summer without air conditioning. The blackouts are all the more complicated now that in many high-rise apartment blocks, water needs electricity to reach homes, and is simultaneously cut …

Al-Arabia – A cargo of 1.033 million barrels of Iranian crude oil landed on US shores in March, data from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) showed, the second shipment of Iranian oil to be imported into the United States since 1991. The cargo was registered in EIA data released late last week for the month following the seizure by …

RFL/RE – Iranian President Hassan Rohani has dismissed the head of the country’s central bank, Abdolnaser Hemmatti, because he is running as a candidate for president in an election in June.Reuters quotes Hemmatti as saying during a meeting late on May 29 via the Clubhouse social media app that Rohani told him: “If you stand in the election, you cannot …

RFL/RE -Iran is using Bitcoin mining to evade crippling U.S. sanctions on its economy, according to a new study. Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic estimates that around 4.5 percent of global Bitcoin mining takes place in Iran, allowing the country to earn hundreds of millions of dollars in cryptocurrencies that can be used to “purchase imports and bypass sanctions.” U.S. sanctions have …