Baku, Azerbaijan, May 16
By Khalid Kazimov – Trend:
Seyyed Ebrahim Raeisi, a pro-conservative candidate in Iran’s May 19 presidential election, has criticized incumbent President Hassan Rouhani’s government over the country’s growing imports from China.
Addressing a crowd of his supporters in southern city of Bushehr, Raeisi said that the volume of the country’s imports from China during President Rouhani’s term has doubled.
Beijing was among Tehran’s main trade partners over the last fiscal year (ended March 20, 2017) as its exports to Iran amounted to $10.753 billion.
In the meantime, Iran exported $8.377 billion worth of goods to China during the 12-month period.
Seyyed Ebrahim Raeisi further touched upon the unemployment issue in the country and implicitly accused Rouhani’s government of failing to address the country’s economic problems.
According to the World Bank, Iranian economy bounced back sharply in 2016 at an estimated 6.4 percent, compared to the previous year.
However, the unemployment rate returned to the three-year high of 12.7 percent (or 3.3 million unemployed) in the second quarter of 2016 despite the high growth rate in this period.
The government spokesman Mohammad Bagher Nobakht said on May 9 that in order to reduce the rising unemployment rate in the country, Iran needs over $233 billion worth of investments annually to create 950,000 new jobs.