Despite the Iranian government’s rumors of fighting and eliminating corruption, increasing the people’s wages, removing the subsidies of the rich, and increasing the subsidies of the poor, solving the problem of housing by creating 1 million houses every year, making the country’s agriculture independent from imports and outside sources, and creating an economic boom by improving the country’s industry, statistics are showing something else.
According to the latest update of World Bank data in July 2021, Iran’s GDP has dropped from $445 billion in 2017 to $191 billion in 2020. Iran’s GDP ranks 26th among the world’s countries in 2017 falls to the 50th in 2020.
Astronomical losses of 67 trillion Tomans by Iran’s National Bank are the next fact of Iran’s sinking economy. A recent document published by Iran’s National Bank shows that of the bank’s approximately 16 trillion tomans of demands, more than 10.5 billion tomans are suspected.
The National Bank, in addition to the heavy accumulated losses, over the past year with the acquisition of 40.4 billion tomans of income from the grant facilities and the payment of 41.3 billion tomans of deposit interest, has registered a negative operating balance of 983.9 billion tomans.
The result is increasing corruption, followed by unbearable poverty of the people. According to the statistics, the average income of the wealthiest segment of society is 34 times higher than the average income of the poorest stratum.
The expansion of rent-seeking relations has exacerbated class divisions in society and, in addition to adding to the legendary wealth of the wealthy, has rapidly increased the population below the poverty line.
The question is why, despite the promises made by the regime’s parliament and government about helping the low-income classes of society, over time we have seen an increase in the number of poor people and the opposite for wealthy people?
The answer is clear to Iranian analysts: government corruption and the accumulation of the country’s wealth by its elements, led by the supreme leader.
A place where this corruption is obvious is in the country’s stock market. How? Tehran Stock Exchange’s total index fell by 38,000 points to 1.488,000 at the close of trading in the last week.
In yesterday’s trading (September 19, 2021), the index also fell sharply by 37,991 points comparing to Wednesday, falling to 1.450,000 points.
During this period, a portion of the real money was withdrawn from the capital market, which experts had predicted would continue connecting it just to the uncertain future of the JCPOA’s negotiations and not considering the regime’s corruption in this event.
In yesterday’s trading for the second consecutive day, the net worth of changing legal ownership to real market turned negative and 845 billion tomans of real money were withdrawn from the stock exchange. The number has increased by more than 100% compared to last Wednesday, September 1, 2021.
And the fact that the regime’s hope for any economic change is just an illusion while looking at the result of the Vienna negotiations and gaining dollars like in the Obama era can be seen in the latest expression of South Korea’s Deputy Ambassador to Tehran.
According to the state-run news agency Entekhab, “referring to the $7 billion that has been blocked, South Korean Deputy Ambassador to Tehran Park Su-dak said: ‘So far, from these sources, we have been able to export only $16 million in membership fees of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations and nearly $50 million in humanitarian items such as medicines to Iran.’” (State-run news agency Entekhab, September 18, 2021)
