Inflation, unemployment, zero medicine: US sanctions bring Iran to its knees
For the IMF the economy is set to fall by 1.5% in 2018 and 3.6% over the next year. Inflation will touch 34.15 in 2019. There are no life-saving medicines like chemotherapy or HIV. As in the times of the war with Iraq, families forced to produce food at home.
Tehran (AsiaNews) - High inflation; skyrocketing above all among young people; lack of essential medicines, including life-saving drugs such as chemotherapy and increasingly prostrating families, as in the days of the war with Iraq in the 1980s. The crisis triggered in Iran by the reintroduction of US sanctions is beginning to be felt and the general attention is now focused on November 4 and the following days, when the measures prepared by the White House, which include blocking the sale of Petroleum will go into effect.
The data from a report published in October by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) show the progressive deterioration of the economy in the Islamic Republic: for 2018 a 1.5% decline is expected, which will touch 3.6% the next year. In 2017, before the hardline crisis imposed by Washington towards Iran, the figure showed a growth of 3.7% and the forecasts spoke of a further strengthening. In terms of inflation, too, data are worrying: this year it should be around 29.6% and increase to 34.1% in 2019.
Last May, Washington imposed new sanctions, the toughest sanctions in history , after pulling out of the nuclear agreement (the JCPOA). A decision that caused a significant drop in the Iranian economy and a collapse in oil sales, the goal of the second part of the sanctions that will be in force since 4 November.
This has all been at the expense primarily of the weakest part of the population, as shown evidenced by the story of Fatemeh, a 42-year-old woman who has not bought meat for her children for two months and has even had to give up tomatoes for a few weeks. Their price had risen from 21 thousand and 71 thousand rials (from 0.12 to 0.40 euros per kilogram) in a few weeks, then lowered a few days ago. The high cost of living has pushed her to renounce even handkerchiefs, because they are too expensive and unobtainable.
"Last year - Fatemeh tells Le Monde - I needed 15 million rials to get to the end of the month. Today, with 30 million I cannot make it ". The sense of distrust and desperation are becoming more widespread and President Hassan Rouhani's assurances that "nothing will happen after November 4" is not enough. In reality, says the woman, "things are destined to go from bad to worse". For this reason, as happened at the time of the war with Iraq, to start economizing, she started producing tomato and yogurt concentrates at home.
Since 6 August, when the first sanctions against the automotive sector, commercial aviation and raw materials entered into force, a feeling of panic has seized the population. And unemployment figures, which in some regions reach 30% among young people, certainly do not lead to optimism, nor the flight of the majority of European investors who arrived in Iran after 2015.
Since February, the local currency, the rial, has lost about 70% of its value on the dollar. Today 140 thousand rials trade for a dollar; last February 40,000 were enough. Added to this is the lack of essential and life-saving medicines to treat hepatitis B and C, HIV or chemotherapy. "Once, while I was on the subway - concludes Fatemeh - I heard a doctor talk about the endless queues at pharmacy counters. He said; pray that nothing happens in these difficult times".
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28/05/2019 11:45
