The Central Bank and the Ministry of Industry have update the list of banned imports to Iran. The new list finds 1139 times. The new decision is based on the government policy of only issuing foreign currency for specific goods.
Not only will the government refuse currency for import of these goods to Iran, but importing them will be considered smuggling and is a punishable offense. A number of these goods are very common imports as they have no counterpart produced domestically. Goods such as industrial powdered milk, washing machines and stoves have been blacklisted from being imported.
Shargh Daily writes that this decision is feared to lead to a significant increase in smuggling. The banned goods are expected to illegally enter the country, purchased with currency bough at the black market exchange rate of over 70000 IRR per USD. On the other hand, in the absence of foreign competition, domestic manufacturers are expected to increase the price of their products without any improvement in their quality. This will lead to further increase in prices and recession in different areas which cannot lead to any positive outcome.
The government claims that this decision was made in order to spend limited resources provided via selling oil on importing basic necessities. The Central Bank is said to directly provide the money for these goods without any outside interference. Goods have been grouped and any retailers who exceed the set prices will be shut down, the Minister of Industry, Mining and Trade said. He added, the press has a role to play in controlling the Inflationary economy and their actions can either control or add to the inflation.
