Baku, Azerbaijan, May 13
By Umid Niayesh - Trend:
Iran's Supreme Leader has said that poverty and discrimination should be uprooted in the Islamic Republic.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei stressed importance of activating domestic potentials for resolving people's economic problems and improving their livelihoods, Iranian official IRNA news agency reported on May 13.
Addressing hundreds of people from Iran's western Ilam province on the birth anniversary of the first Imam of Shiites Khamenei also said the US can not keep Iranian people backward.
The Supreme Leader went on to say that the Iranian people will not come down if rely on the domestic potentials.
Implementation of the "resistance economy" and relying on the country's talents and potentials is the only path for overcoming all of the economic problems, he added.
The term "resistance economy" was originally announced in the summer of 2010. It is designed to make Iran less vulnerable to international sanctions by relying less on crude-oil exports by increasing domestic production and knowledge-based exports.
Earlier in March Iranian MP Mousarreza Servati said that some 15 million of Iranian population live below the poverty line.
He went on to note that the figure includes about 20 percent of Iranians which is considerable.
Iran's Department of Statistics announced in May 2010that ten million Iranians live under the "Absolute Poverty Line" and 30 million live under the "Relative Poverty Line."