Food Prices Keep Rising In Iran Ahead Of Persian New Year
With only a few weeks left until the new Iranian year on March 20, prices of essential food items are still rising at alarming levels, local media report.
With only a few weeks left until the new Iranian year on March 20, prices of essential food items are still rising at alarming levels, local media report.
The last weeks of the year in Iran are traditionally the time that the prices jump in anticipation of more demand and this year is no exception, especially with general inflation hovering around 40-percent for the past year making the situation worse.
Food prices have been rising much faster, with government figures showing above 60-percent inflation at retail level in 2021, compared with 2020.
Sugar and different types of rice are usually items with highest price increases followed by different kinds of meat, chicken and eggs as well as cooking oil.
Each year the government announces some measures to control the prices such as supplying subsidized food items, distributing basic goods through state-owned chain stores, banning exports or punitive measures for wholesale middlemen or retailers who don’t abide by state-regulated prices. Usually, all such measures turn out to be ultimately in vain and only lead to more tension in the market or corruption by state companies who control the distribution of sugar, rice and other basic food items.
In recent months, prices for rice – which is the main staple food in Iranian diet -- experienced a lot of fluctuations, reaching to about 1,000,000 rials (about $4) per kilogram, which is enough for five to eight people for one meal and many families eat some rice-based meals twice a day. However, an average Iranian wage-earner gets $100 to $200 per month.
To regulate the rice market, the government recently started fixing the price of this commodity, and the Agriculture Ministry announced a price list for different types of Iranian and foreign rice.
But still consumer prices at grocery shops are different from those announced by the authorities. When the ministry’s inspectors confront the wholesalers and retailers about their higher prices, their response usually is that they rather close their businesses than sell their goods at government prices and lose money. Somewhere in the supply chain prices go up and especially retailers complain that they pay much more than the official price.
In addition to rice, the red meat market is also in so much turbulence that the government has banned the export of live cattle to prevent rising prices.
According to data provided by the Trade Ministry, the price of one kilogram of beef in December was over 40 percent more than that of the corresponding period in the previous year.
The head of Cattle Farmers Association, Ahmad Moghaddasi, told Mehr News that producers’ prices have not changed in recent months, but retail prices have jumped dramatically.
He criticized the authorities for failing to control the prices in the meat market, stating that “unfortunately the brokers and intermediaries are stronger than the authorities,” therefore they benefit from the losses of both producers and consumers.
The highest price increase is related to sugar, which jumped by 76 percent compared to October 2020 as the government stopped allocating cheap dollars for its import.
Since April 2018, Iran has been providing US dollars to importers of essential goods at the preferential rate of 42,000 rials, while the dollar has steadily climbed against Iran’s rial, reaching 290,000 in November.
This was in fact a food subsidy first provided when looming US economic sanctions in early 2018 were already creating high inflation in the country.
The phone call, apparently initiated by Raisi, followed Russia's invasion of Ukraine. "The President of Iran expressed understanding with respect to Russia’s security concerns caused by the destabilizing actions of the United States and NATO," a Kremlin press release said Thursday evening.
Putin told Raisi that Russia had taken "a legitimate response" to decades of the “West” violating security agreements and efforts to undermine Russian security, Press TV, Iran's state-run English-language channel, reported.
“The eastward expansion of Nato is a source of tension,” Raisi told Putin. “The continued expansion of Nato is a serious threat against the stability and security of independent countries in various regions of the world.”
Ten eastern European countries have joined Nato, a military alliance, since 1999. With the Ukrainian government wanting to follow suit, Moscow had requested assurances from Nato that Ukraine would not be admitted.
Some Iranian journalists and media have criticized Raisi's call. "What is the justification for Raisi's call to Putin on the first night of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and subtly supporting Russia?" Behrouz Azizi, an Iranian journalist who calls himself a "moderate conservative", tweeted Thursday.
Others have argued that Raisi's views on Nato breach both Iran's official "Neither West, Nor East" mantra and its constitution. "Raisi violated Articles 152 and 154 of the Constitution without any qualms" with his phone call with Putin, Milad Alavi, journalist in Tehran, tweeted Thursday. Article 152 requires “non-alignment with respect to the hegemonist superpowers,” taken at the time to be the United States and the Soviet Union.
Rallying to the Ukrainian cause, journalist Saeed Maleki lashed out at Raisi, tweeting: "You've become so Russophile that you don't even dare to openly condemn the war on Ukraine and the killings. In the phone call all you can do is wishing that these have good consequences…Nothing worse than this could be said."
Russian 'Honeymoon' Won’t Last
Former Iranian ambassador to Baku, Afshar Soleimani, said Iran has not officially approved of Russia's invasion but is standing by Russia's side with "subtle approval." Ali Motahari, a former deputy speaker of parliament, criticized the state media for reporting as if "the mouthpiece of a Russian colony."
Others highlighted Nato’s role.In a series of tweets Friday, Abdollah Ganji, former managing director of Javan newspaper, which is affiliated to the Revolutionary Guards, said Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had set the course for war by visiting Nato headquarters last year. Ganji predicted Russia’s "honeymoon in Ukraine" would not last.
The Friday imam of Tehran, Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, in his sermon Friday said Nato and the US were "meddling all around the world" and "complicating the situation" in eastern Europe as the European Nato powers were "beating on the drums of war."