TEHRAN, Iran, May 7. The Iranian parliament is seeking more clarity over the government's bread subsidies scheme, a member of parliament in the planning and budget commission Jafar Ghaderi told Trend.
"The government has not clearly announced its mechanism for
flour subsidies and new bread prices.
Parliament's assumption is those (traditional) bakeries would
purchase flour based on a free-market rate and receive subsidies
from the government based on their sale but consumers would pay the
previous bread prices," he said.
Ghaderi went on to say that the following plan will prevent flour smuggling and Iran can even export products such as pasta.
The MP pointed out that the process of assigning bread subsidies has not been specified whether it would be paid to bank cards of each citizen or issue bread cards for each family based on a specific quota.
"Some say the government would issue bread cards based on the daily consumption of each individual some say bank cards will be used for bread purchases and there is no limit for families," he noted.
Ghaderi stressed that the government should announce details of the plan and industrial bakeries should also be included in the plan and supported by receiving subsidies since industrial bread have less waste.
The MP underlined that the government efforts should be to increase people's purchase power and resolve production problems while low-income families should receive subsidies for specific commodities.
The price of bread and pasta has increased in Iran following the global hikes in wheat flour and grain caused by the Ukraine conflict.