Inflation Wave Continues; Potatoes Now 9,000 Tomans per Kilogram
Iranian media outlets report that the price of potatoes has exceeded the 9,000 toman mark per kilogram.
The ISNA news agency reported Tuesday evening that this product has been sold for as much as 9,500 tomans.
Although an inflation wave has gripped certain commodities in recent months, officials in the fruit and vegetable sector say there is no shortage; rather, potato exports have caused the price increase.
In recent months, an inflation wave has affected some essential and everyday commodities. In the final days of Ordibehesht, the price of Iranian rice doubled compared to last year, reaching over 23,000 tomans.
A month ago, domestic Iranian media reported a 60 percent increase in the price of fish and its scarcity in some online stores.
Earlier, the inflation surge in Iran’s market, after poultry and meat, extended to products such as tomatoes and onions.
The price increases of commodities in Iran continue under circumstances where recently Ishaq Jahangiri, the first vice president of Iran’s president, has spoken of the possibility of the return of rationing and the “coupon-ification” of certain commodities in Iran.
On the fourth of Ordibehesht, two weeks after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was placed on the list of terrorist groups by America and three days after the United States revoked the sanctions waiver on Iranian oil purchases, Ayatollah Khamenei, the leader of the Islamic Republic, said in a public speech that “sanctions can benefit the country.”
On the same day, Brian Hook, the U.S. State Department’s special representative for Iran affairs, said in a television interview: “Iranians are successful everywhere in the world; but they don’t have success in their own country. A religious mafia and a kleptocratic regime rule in Tehran. They ruthlessly plunder their own people to finance all these proxy forces throughout the Middle East—from Lebanon to Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Bahrain. The United States and the Iranian people want this situation to end.”
Mr. Hook told the Fox News television network: “Our sanctions have targeted the regime [Islamic Republic] to essentially increase the cost of its violent and malicious foreign policy. Now Iran must choose: either begin behaving like a normal country or witness the collapse of its economy. This is the price the regime pays for behaving like an outlaw regime.”
Source: Voice of America
