Azerbaijan, Baku, Apr.24/ Trend F.Karimov/
Cooking oil prices have risen 35 per cent in Iran, IRNA reported. The new prices were announced publicly on April 21 to producers nationwide.
An 810gr bottle of soy bean vegetable oil has been priced at 35,100 rials, according to the Mehr News Agency.
Iranians rushed to supermarkets to buy cooking oil, red meat and other staple foods on Tuesday, stockpiling goods over new fears of price spikes from a change in the official exchange rate that could severely reduce the already weakened purchasing power of the rial, the national currency, the New York Times said in a report.
Prices of staple food long deemed essential are set to increase by as much as 60 per cent because of the currency change which nearly doubles the mandatory exchange rate for importers of goods like medicine, chicken and sugar, but also machinery spare parts and some chemicals.
Under Iran's complicated system of multiple exchange rates, the importers had been paying a rate of 12,260 rials to the dollar, but will now have to pay 24,500 rials to the dollar.
The new exchange rate is much closer to the rial's actual market value,which currency traders estimate to be nearer 35,500 rials to the dollar.