TEHRAN, Iran, Oct.30
Trend:
Iranian parliament's plan to supply subsidies on necessary goods via electronic coupons, aims to improve the purchase power of low-income families, but it would lead to increase of inflation due to lack of resources, said an economist, Mohammad Sadegh Alhosseini, Trend reports citing ILNA.
"These plans are populist ideas and have no plan for a resource to handle the costs. All this is empty talk from people seeking popularity, who can't do something for people in real," he said.
"Although, the government is also responsible, since it has reduced its budget and predicted non-inflationary financing in the budget to prevent increase of inflation rate, " he said.
"The government distributed official foreign currency rate of 42,000 rial per dollar but did try to control the inflation or help people in tough economic situation," he said. "It could have assigned the official foreign currency rate to things that would have more effect on the livelihood of the low-income people," he said.
"Meanwhile the Central Bank of Iran did not stay dedicated to target inflation and its not possible that inflation rate would be less than 30 percent by the end of the current Iranian year (started March 20,2020) due to low interest rate therefore these plans would increase the inflation," he said.
The parliament has proposed that the government allocate $14 billion in subsidized currency in the form of "electronic coupons” for essential goods, pharmaceuticals and medical equipment.