Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said in his new year speech that this would be the year of increasing support to and removing barriers from Iran’s production, but this fails to recognize that the reason for the economic crisis is institutionalized corruption and mismanagement.
Many state-run media outlets and regime experts have cast doubt on how the Iranian economy will improve this year, with economist Farshad Fatemi warning that the first six months will be taken up with the presidential elections and former Minister of Industry, Mines, and Trade Mehdi Ghazanfari saying that fabricated reports will not change the fact that people are waiting hours in line to buy cheap chicken.
Ghazanfari said: “Many organizations manipulate reports and make numbers, so a measurement system must be set up. Mismanagement at various levels usually manifests itself in economic indicators. But we try to keep a facade, and with useless decisions, problems practically turn into crises.”
Tejaratnews wrote Monday that the inflation rate is now 30% in Iran and that this will only grow in the coming year, which is made even more disastrous when you consider that economists outside Iran note that the true inflation rate is already much higher. (Professor Steve Hanke from John Hopkins University said in December that it was more likely 97.52%. He then accused the regime of downplaying the crisis with fake statistics.) While Etemad explained that inflation and liquidity are skyrocketing despite supposed economic growth
The Iranian Resistance wrote: “The root of Iran’s economic crisis is not only the regime’s mismanagement. The blame also falls on the regime’s institutionalized corruption and wrong policies. In other words, unlike what the mullahs’ apologists try to sell, Iran’s economic crisis is not due to the sanctions.”
Parliament speaker Mohammad Baghaer Ghalibaf admitted on Monday that sanctions are not the problem because inflation was still high in years when Iran exported $119 billion worth of goods and in 2020 when they exported just $15 billion worth.
He said: “Our problem is not lacking money, and we have problems even when we do have money. On one side, there are mountains of wealth. On the other side, there is poverty.”
While senior Union of Islamic Iran People Party member, Azar Mansouri, said that “systematic corruption” is the obstacle to increasing capital in Iran, which is why “serious, real, and legal reforms” are needed.
The Iranian Resistance wrote: “While Iran’s economy is on freefall, the regime spends billions of dollars for its nuclear and missile projects… This is why people from all walks of life in Iran hold protests and chant: ‘Our enemy is right here; they lie it is the US’.”
