Donya-e-Eghtesad writes that in 2017, 3.5 million Iranians visited Turkey, Dubai, Georgia and Azerbaijan. Turkey was the main destination of 70% of these tourists and thus, after Russia and Germany, Iran ranks third for the number of tourists in Turkey. Iran is also responsible for 11% and 4% of Azerbaijan and Georgia’s tourism market. Considering a minimum package holiday price of 25 million IRRs, these tourists have spent at least 1.2 billion dollars.
Shahrvand writes that with next year’s parliament elections looming, Members of the Parliament have voted not to cancel personal subsidies. Although the government had planned to cancel half of the subsidies which were paid to upper and middle classes in order to ease its burden, with the Parliaments vote in 2018 the Government became responsible for paying 460 trillion IRRs in cash subsidies. Due to population growth, this amount is almost 10% more than previous years.
