Azerbaijan, Baku, March 31/ Trend M. Moezzi
Smuggling goods cost Iran 1.5 million jobs last year a Friday prayer leader in Iran's East Azerbaijan Province said during his sermon, the asriran.com website reported.
Referring to the new national slogan "Domestic production, support for Iranian investments and jobs," issued by the country's Supreme Leader, Hojjatoleslam Ghahreman Ahmadi said everyone is responsible for carrying out the directive.
The Friday prayer leader for the town of Heris pointed to statistics that say 100,000 jobs are lost with every billion dollars of goods smuggled into the country.
If the value of goods smuggled into Iran last year was an estimated $15 billion, that means 1.5 million jobs were lost said Mr. Ahmadi who called the estimate optimistic.
The country's Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, issued a new national slogan for the new Iranian year on March 20,
Iran's economy is increasingly stressed by U.S.-led sanctions against Iran's oil industry and its central bank. The rial, Iran's currency, has lost half of its value against the dollar diminishing Iranians' purchasing power even as the inflation rate continues to climb.