In the four decades since the Iranian regime ascended to power, Iran’s economy has gradually been taken to the verge of complete collapse. In order to keep themselves afloat, the regime regularly has to devise new plans to help balance the books, usually at the expense of ordinary citizens who are falling below the poverty line on a daily basis.
The main tactic that the regime uses is by gradually raising the prices of basic goods, but to cover their backs they often blame international sanctions for the growing cost of living. However, many regime officials and experts have openly admitted that the regime’s policies are to blame.
The People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) said, “In addition, it is the government that controls and objectively changes the prices of basic commodities such as fuel, water, and electricity. The gradual and undeclared increase of these prices ripples across all other goods.”
A further factor that is also heavily affecting the decline of the Iranian economy is the uncontrolled printing of banknotes, and as a result, the national currency has been depreciated. According to the state-run Hamshahri newspaper, on average 67.5 trillion rials are generated by the Central Bank on a daily basis. 48 trillion of which are the excess banknotes that the regime is printing.
The regime’s own experts have previously stated that the price of basic goods in Iran increases by 4 percent for every 10 percent increase in liquidity. Adding to these issues are the massive imports that are consistently brought into the country by the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), who have a large majority of control over the Iranian economy.
The MEK said, “The imports, which are a huge boon to the IRGC and regime officials, are gradually chipping away at the country’s production. In the past decades, many iconic and long-standing companies that supported Iran’s economic infrastructure have gone bankrupt and vanished as they’ve gone bankrupt as a result of the regime’s policies.”
All of these policies, while they give the regime enough boosts of cash for their malign activities and nuclear program, are short-lived as they do not create or contribute to a productive economic cycle. Therefore, this explains why the regime has to resort to creating new plans to take more money from the Iranian people. As the regime enters the new Persian year in March 2022, they are already faced with a 50 percent budget deficit.
The MEK said, “The regime has two new plans to fill this gap. One of these plans, which was introduced in Raisi’s budget bill for the year 2022 was the removal of the 42,000 rial-to-USD exchange rate on vital imports. The second, which recently leaked, is the plan to increase the price of gasoline.”
This latest plan is likely to create unofficial markets through which the regime will sell fuel at uncontrolled prices, once again stealing from the poor to line their own pockets. Estimates have suggested that this plane will increase the price of fuel by ninefold, which in turn will increase the prices of food items, transportation, electricity, etc.
The MEK said, “With Iran’s economy on the verge of total collapse and millions of people living under the poverty line, the country has lost its capacity to withstand further shocks. And as the November 2019 protests showed, it only takes a spark to cause a major social explosion that can lead to the total downfall of this corrupt regime.”
