Iran’s economic situation worse than thought

Azerbaijan, Baku, Jul.14/ Trend F.Karimov/

Akbar Torkan, the advisor to Iranian president-elect Hassan Rohani, has said that the country's economic situation is worse than previously thought.

The next administration's main concern is to provide people with staple foods, he said in an interview with Asseman weekly newsletter on Sunday.

Torkan has said that the administration of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has spent the money, which had been gained through increasing fuel prices for paying cash subsidies, in other cases and so the next administration will have no money for the cash payments.

"According to the national budget bill, the cash payments should be continued. To this end, fuel prices should be increased by 38 percent. But, this issue has not been realized yet, meaning that there will be no money to pay cash subsidies," Torkan said.

Earlier this month, Rohani in a meeting with grand Ayatollahs in the city of Qom said that his administration team was planning to import six million tons of wheat.

The Chairman of Iran's Expediency Council Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has said that the administration of President-elect Hassan Rohani inherits many economic and political problems from the past, ILNA reported.

Meanwhile, Rohani's economic advisor Mohammad-Baqer Nobakht has said that Rohani will revise the system for cash subsidies.
President Ahmadinejad's legacy for Rohani includes a 1.9 per cent economic contraction in 2012, over three million unemployed citizens, 40 per cent closed industry unions, $400 billion debts, a $60 billion deficit in last year's budget based on the USD's official rate in Iran, 32 per cent inflation, halved crude oil export and a drop in the value of the national currency by 40 per cent in 2012, alongside blocked $100 billion worth of assets in foreign countries.

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