Azerbaijan, Baku, July 9/ Trend, N. Umid/
Imported wheat is delayed and costs $150 per ton more than wheat on the international market, and has cost Iran $1 billion in losses, Issa Kalantari, head of the House of Farmers, who served as Minister of Agriculture from 1997 to 2005 said, Ghanoondaily newspaper reported on July 8.
Iran has imported 6.5 million tons of wheat worth $2.5 billion, during the last solar year, which ended on March 21. From March 21 to May 21, Ahmadinejad's government imported $382 million worth of wheat as well.
Rueters reported on June 6 that Iran bought 600,000 tons ($350 per ton, with extra premium) from the EU, which is to be shipped to Iran in the coming months.
Kalantari said that Iran's President-elect Hassan Rohani will take the presidency in a few weeks with an empty treasury, empty ports and depots and an empty Central Bank.
He rejected the statistics given by Ahmadinejad last week and underlined that Iran's Agricultural production hardly reaches 68 million tons.
It will take at least two years for Iran to backpedal out of its current economic mess, Kalanteri argued.
Ahmadinejad said last week during a live interview on IRIB State TV that he will hand the goverment over to Rohani with $100 billion in foreign currency reserves.
President Ahmadinejad's economic legacy for Rohani includes a 1.9 per cent economic contraction in 2012, over three million unemployed citizens, 40 per cent closed industry unions, $400 billion in debt, a $60 billion deficit in last year's budget based on the USD's official rate in Iran, 32 per cent inflation, halved crude oil exports and a drop in the value of the national currency by 40 per cent in 2012, alongside $100 billion in blocked assets abroad.