For presidential candidates: Iranian economists call for developing economic programs and seeking to lift sanctions Economy News

TehranThe economy has always been the most prominent concern of voters and candidates running for the presidential elections in Iran scheduled for the 28th of this month to succeed the late President Ibrahim Raisi, who died in a plane accident last month.

In this context, a number of Iranian economists published an open letter in which they enumerated the economic challenges and offered solutions to them, considering that the way to save the national economy is through lifting sanctions and returning from economic policies to economics.

In the letter addressed to the presidential election candidates, the non-governmental Iranian Economists Association identified the challenges facing the national economy in several areas, the most prominent of which are:

• Low economic growth
• High inflation
• Decline in the value of the national currency
• High unemployment rates
• Lack of close relations at the international level to serve the economy
• The spread of corruption
• Energy crisis
• Decline in well-being
• The exit of human capital and capital from the country
• Undermining public confidence
• Widening rift in wealth distribution
• They emphasized that the country is facing a major environmental crisis and problems resulting from declining water resources and high levels of air pollution.

Solutions and treatment

The statement of the Iranian Economists Association called on the next government to take a long-term plan in preparation for resolving these challenges at the internal and international levels, and recommended working to lift sanctions, remove tensions, and the need to deal constructively with advanced economies on the international arena.

The statement called on the presidential election candidates to give the utmost importance to the growth of the economy and the citizen’s livelihood and to make efforts to coordinate all the country’s capabilities in order to achieve economic goals and combat corruption, considering that the entities associated with decision-making centers pose a major challenge to successful planning.

The statement – which was distributed by the Iranian Economists Association to the Persian-speaking media – referred to the necessity of meeting popular demands, ensuring social freedoms, and enhancing social wealth to bring about the participation of segments of the people in national policies. Economists called for eliminating tension between political parties at home and reforming social pluralism.

budget deficiency

The statement saw the hidden budget and other expenditures outside the framework of the budget as another challenge that causes an increase in the budget deficit, and urged the next government to reform the budget and transfer all expenditures to a unified financial document, in addition to the need to amend some provisions of the constitution to enhance the status of the private sector and delete the semi-governmental sectors affiliated with institutions. Official.

The Iranian Economists Association considered exempting some companies and institutions belonging to some influential parties from paying taxes as discrimination that has nothing to do with the principle of justice, stressing the necessity of observing equality and the law in dealing with official institutions, the private sector, and segments of the people.

Economists recommended that the next government reduce its expenditures to contain and reduce inflation in preparation for reducing taxes for middle-income segments and small companies, and the association saw the government’s cessation of interference in the markets as the right way to return calm to them.

Lifting sanctions

The statement believed that the national economy can only be stabilized by amending higher policies, combating corruption, enhancing the value of the national currency, supporting production, preserving the environment, and paving roads to attract investments, including foreign ones.

In conclusion, the Iranian Economists Association expressed its wish that the presidential election candidates would acknowledge the economic and other mistakes over the past two decades and what led to the country falling into the trap of sanctions and their intensification, and that they would declare their readiness to lift the barriers to development and prepare scientific economic programs that would nullify the effectiveness of those mistakes.

She called on the candidates to prepare economic programs based on economics, and urged the next president to work to abolish the sanctions imposed on the country in his program. She expressed her readiness to provide specialized advice to the next president to overcome the challenges and crises that threaten the national economy.