Middle East
The Currency Falls — What Does It Mean
The Iranian currency, the rial, has fallen almost 10% vs. the US dollar in five days. The rate now stands on the open market at 15300:1. Those numbers are only the beginning of the story. The gap between the official rate of exchange, which is just below 11000:1, and the free-market rate is now more than 40%. That in turn feeds the fall of the rial. People will line up outside banks --- Tabnak wrote this week of the degrading sight of Iranians sleeping in front of them and waiting for the doors to open --- and, if they can get the dollars, immediately re-sell them at "free" rates. Alternatively, people will buy gold coins --- some will again take advantage of gaps in rates to make a quick profit by trading them on the open market, others will store them as a hedge against the economic crisis.
Iran’s Currency Plunges to Record Lows
Iran Has Only Six Months
While sanctions against Iran s central bank - an idea that has already reverberated through the country s economic sector - have not yet been signed by the US president, a review of the Iranian media indicates the constrains that exist in debating this issue. To clarify the meaning and consequences of sanctioning the central bank, Rooz interviewed two prominent economy specialist in Tehran, Mohammad-Reza Behzadian and Kamal Athari. Behzadian believes that while such sanctions cannot take place against Iran right now, they can within the next six months if Iraqi, Saudi and Libyan oil make up Iran's absence from the oil market. Behzadian who is associated with reformers ran in the Tehran s chamber of commerce elections with the slogan of 'change' and claims to have unlodged the body from its conservative elements such as Ali Naghi Khamushi, Mir-Mohammad Sadeghi and Asadollah Asqar-Owladi. Read on for the details.
Assessing The Real Rate of Unemployment
The fact that after a long hiatus the Statistical Center of Iran (SCI) has decided to publish the results of its quarterly Labor Force Survey should be welcome news but instead it has been met with controversy and disbelief. The new report for summer 1390 (2011) shows a surprisingly low unemployment rate of 11.1%, down from 13.6% the same quarter a year ago. In the absence of data on the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from the Central Bank in the last 3 years, analysts were hoping to find answers to questions about the economy s health from unemployment data, but instead they were disappointed. Many reports, including one interview with a former SCI deputy director, dismissed the data as cooked.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad becomes latest victim of shoe-throwing attack
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has become the latest leader to find himself on the receiving end of that popular Middle Eastern method of protest the thrown shoe. Like George W Bush before him, Ahmadinejad found himself staring down the sole of a gentleman's shoe when someone believed to be a recently laid-off textile worker decided to demonstrate his anger during an official ceremony in the north of the country
Iran sees crude market relatively balanced
Iran's OPEC governor said on Saturday the oil market was "relatively balanced", indicating the country will not push for any major shift in an OPEC ministerial meeting next week. -- "The market is relatively balanced ... and my feeling is there is a general sentiment among the OPEC members to make a decision based on the real needs of the market," Mohammad Ali Khatibi told Reuters.
Khuzestan Workers Protests
On October 22, a group of workers with Ahvaz Pipe Manufacturing Company staged a protest gathering by Ahvaz Governor s House protesting nonpayment of back wages. A number of the workers were arrested during those protests. Yet another protest gathering was held on October 29 on the same premise. The workers complained that the permanent workers had not received their back wages for the last 12 months while the contract workers had gone more than 15 months without pay. The plant is employing 450 permanent and 350 contracted workers.
Protests Against Firing of Workers and Closure of Workshops
Despite the claims by the Majlis representative from Mahshahr that the workers strikes at the town s petrochemical complex had ended, news reports indicate that the strikes continue. The executive secretary of the province s Khane Kargar, a workers organization, confirmed the bleak situation when he recently said, "Statistics on the number of laid off workers in recent years are greater than new hires and we have been witness to the dismissal of worker and the closure of workshops in this province."
Iran moves to impeach economy minister
1.6 Million Families Evading Gas Bills, Says MP
More Strike Actions Across the Country
The month of September has witnessed growing protest actions by the Iranian workers across the country. On September 5, Zhaveh dam workers in Kurdistan went on strike in protest for nonpayment of back wages going back some six months. The workers indicated that they would continue their strike until they receive due compensation
Workers on Strike at Bandar Imam Petrochemical Complex – Day 7
Seven days have passed since 1500 workers of Bandar Imam Petrochemical Complex in Khuzestan Province began their strike. Free Trade Union of Iranian Workers has reported that security agents have arrested 3 workers and taken them to the Intelligence Agency located at the port city of Bandar Imam Khomeini.
Iran’s striking traders reject tax deal-reports
Iran’s inflation rate hits 17.2%
Iran’s suicide rate soars, averaging 10 per day
Iran's suicide rate has climbed 17% in two years, with 10 Iranians on average taking their lives every day, a government official announced Wednesday. Ahmad Shaja'i, the country s chief of forensic medicine, told the Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA) that suicides increased nearly 5% since last year, with 952 Iranians taking their lives during the first quarter of the Iranian year, which began in March, compared with 870 the same time last year. More than 70% of the suicides were men.
Iran sees return to normal oil exports to India in August -Fars
Iran reiterates threat to take gas project off China
IMF Defends Its Cheerleading for Tehran’s Economy
Iran’s Untenable Economy
Mention of the words structural reform these days usually conjures up images of the unrest in Greece. But according to a new report from the International Monetary Fund, Iran has also been restructuring its economy, introducing changes that have resulted in an unexpected growth rate of 3.2 percent in 2010-11.
Iran Makes Itself More Vulnerable to Outside Pressure
Tehran distributed a sixth installment of cash payments to 73 million Iranians in lieu of subsidies on fuel, natural gas, electricity, and essential items such as bread. Having done the easy part of its subsidy reform -- sending out checks to compensate for price increases -- the regime must now do the hard part: raise the money to pay for those checks and find a way to help businesses badly hit by the higher prices. Tehran should be able to meet that challenge as long as its oil income remains high, but if oil prices drop or sanctions impede financial flows, it could face serious problems.
Iran Makes Itself More Vulnerable to Outside Pressure
Tehran distributed a sixth installment of cash payments to 73 million Iranians in lieu of subsidies on fuel, natural gas, electricity, and essential items such as bread. Having done the easy part of its subsidy reform -- sending out checks to compensate for price increases -- the regime must now do the hard part: raise the money to pay for those checks and find a way to help businesses badly hit by the higher prices. Tehran should be able to meet that challenge as long as its oil income remains high, but if oil prices drop or sanctions impede financial flows, it could face serious problems.
Why Ahmadinejad isn’t on his way out
There has been much dancing on the grave of Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad. After his unnerving re-election two years ago in a disputed and bloody vote, Ahmadinejad's many critics abroad and at home have savored the thorough political beating he has suffered over the last few months by Iran's real power, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei . Yet there are signs that Ahmadinejad is not a spent force just yet. This wily survivor is in the midst of renewing himself. His prime weapon has been a combination of oil supplicance and oil populism.
Workers of Tractor Manufacturing Company on Strike
Iran Redistributes Wealth in Bid to Fight Sanctions
Saudis step in as Iranian oil dries up
Saudi Arabia has agreed to sell 3 million barrels of additional crude oil to India next month to make up for supply cut by Iran over unpaid bills, touching $7 billion. Saudi Aramco, the national oil firm of Saudi Arabia, will supply one million barrels each to Essar Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum in August while Mangalore Refinery, too, is in talks to contract similar volumes, officials said on Tuesday.
China and Iran plan oil barter
The Supreme Leader’s Economic PlanÂ
On July 19, Iran s highest authority, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, published a General Employment Policy consisting of 13 goals or strategies to improve employment in Iran. The plan was an indirect but telling acknowledgement of Iran s massive unemployment problem --- it follows just a week after statements by Khamenei to Iran s Chamber of Commerce in which the Supreme Leader urged economic optimism and restraint in publishing discouraging items regarding the economy. The statement was published to virtually every state-owned or affiliated news agency in Farsi, as well as the the Supreme Leader s website.
Sanctions Spark Iran Currency Fluctuations
Over the past decade, Iran's central bank, which channels more than 90 per cent of hard currency into the local market, has employed a managed float system to support a single rate against hard currencies, notably the US dollar. Usually when the rial shows signs of weakening the bank pumps foreign currency into the market to bring rates down. But sometimes the authorities choose to weaken the national currency intentionally by withholding the supply of hard currency to earn more rial-denominated income when the government faces a budget deficit.
Iran and China sign $4b in deals
Iran sees trade booming despite sanctions
Subsidies: New IMF Report
The successful implementation of the drastic price increases has created a unique opportunity for Iran to reform its economy and accelerate economic growth and development. The authorities are now faced with the challenging task of translating this opportunity into reality. Pre-reform preparations, for good reasons, centered on ensuring social support for the price increases. Without broad public support, the government would not have been able to increase the domestic prices of energy and other products.
Poverty in war-torn towns is forcing women to sell organs
Iran’s Economy – A Political Battleground, But Could it Undo the Islamic Republic
Iran’s Annual Oil, Gas Production Hits $217B
Iraq Signs $365 Million Pipeline Agreement to Import Iranian Gas
Iraq signed a $365 million agreement to install a pipeline network to import natural gas from Iran for power stations in the country. The pipelines will eventually supply 25 million cubic meters of Iranian natural gas a day to the Sadr, al-Quds and South Baghdad power stations in the Iraqi capital, Mosaab Serri, a spokesman for the Iraqi Ministry of Electricity, said by telephone today. The agreement with Iran, which holds the world s second-largest gas reserves, requires the approval of the Iraqi Council of Ministers and Parliament.
Saudi prince proposes oil war with Iran
Underlining the escalating cold war between Saudi Arabia and its rival Iran, former intelligence chief Prince Turki al-Faisal proposes the kingdom use its oil power to drive down prices to batter the Islamic Republic's sanctions-hit economy. That would ratchet up tensions in the Persian Gulf and the wider Middle East at a time of unprecedented political upheaval
Iran’s bold economic reform: Economic jihad
GOOD news from Iran is rare, and the IMF is seldom a font of happy tidings about anything. So when a mission from the Fund cheered the Islamic Republic s economy earlier this month, heaping praise on the policies of its ruthless government, eyebrows spiked upwards as in a comic scene in a Persian miniature. The shock was even sharper given that the IMF, whose biggest shareholder happens to be the Great Satan, America, is a pillar of global capitalism, a system that Iran s maverick president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, gleefully lambasts as evil.
Vitol to resume Caspian oil swaps with Iran
Iran’s New Economic Slump
Iran Imports Gasoline From Asia-Pacific Region, Oil Daily Says
Iran, Long Seen As An Economic Basket Case, Wins Praise From IMF
If you were seeking endorsement of Iran's economic policies, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) hardly seems like the ideal reference point. The Washington-based institution is, after all, renowned for zealously promoting programs of public spending cuts and economic liberalization. Iran, meanwhile -- at least under President Mahmud Ahmadinejad -- has repeatedly forecast the imminent end of the global capitalist system.
Iran to use all tools to stop currency slide
Iran's central bank announced a raft of measures to prop up the rial currency on Wednesday after a rush for dollars forced a devaluation. The measures, including raising domestic interest rates, come after the bank said earlier this week it was injecting billions of dollars into the market to stabilise the currency.
Grounding Iranian Crude to a Halt
Where Politics is a Distraction from Making Money
Judging by the front pages of Persian language newspapers neatly laid out at every Tehran newsstand, political scandal is in the air. President Ahmadinejad's closest aides, including right-hand man Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, are being accused of embezzlement, cronyism, collaboration with opposition forces, and even pagan rituals thrown in for shock value.
The Squeeze of Ahmadinejad’s Subsidy CutsÂ
Iran oil output ‘may drop drastically by 2015’
Ahmadinejad TV Interview Khamenei ‘Like a Father to Our Society’ – Tehran Bureau
12,000 unemployed physicians in Iran
Supporting the Workers
With May Day approaching, the opposition Coordination Council of the Green Path of Hope has expressed support for Iranian workers while expressing concern over the regime's treatment of the workers' rights to organise, mobilise, and protest and declaring, "Without resolving the flaws in the country's political system, it is not possible to speak of any economic revival.
Will the Economy Rock the Boat
The dejected state of Iran's economy is increasingly a topic of public discourse. Facing what a local financial analyst for HSBC Bank describes as "the bleakest prospects in nearly two decades," even the government appears anxious to paint its policies, described as disastrous by market watchers, in a positive light.
Iran food prices up 25 pct, twice inflation
Food prices in Iran have risen almost 25 percent in one year, official figures released on Sunday showed, twice the overall official rate of inflation. Figures from the Central Bank of Iran, carried in Iranian newspapers, showed the bank's food basket cost 24.46 percent more in the first month of the Iranian year, starting March 21, than in the same month a year ago.
Iran Workers Protest Over Wage Arrears
Workers in the northwestern Iranian city of Qazvin have staged protests in recent days to demand the payment of wage arrears. The reformist website Jaras reported that dozens of workers at Qazvin's textile industry staged a demonstration in front of the Presidential Institute in Tehran on April 16, saying they had not been paid for over a year.
Iran has foreign exchange reserves of $100 bln
Cuts to energy subsidies hitting farmers hard, lawmaker says
Factory Workers On Strike In Southern Iran
Workers at two major industrial enterprises in Iran's southern province of Khuzestan are on strike, RFE/RL's Radio Farda reports. Some 1,500 employees of the Imam Port Petrochemical Complex have been staging gatherings in front of its headquarters since April 9 to demand their work contracts be concluded directly with the plant's management rather than with contractors.
Growing Anger over Rising Energy Prices
Conflicting reports on Iran’s unemployment rate
The Economy, Anyone?
MP Hamidreza Katouzian, head of energy committee, has released a statement that, without proper investment, Iran will become the largest importer of oil and related products. He also said that subsidy cuts were generally positive, but that the lack of refunds will put Iranian industry in dire condition.