Iran Economy in Brief – No. 26

How much Iftar dinner costs in Iran?
Iftar is the name of Ramadan dinners. Typically, people who fast, start their dinner with soup, bread and cheese and finish with sweets.
The syndicate of vegetable and fruits says that during Ramadan the consumption of leaf vegetables for cooking an Iranian soup called Ash increases and that has increased its price by 10% reaching $0.3/kg. But the most increase has been in date-fruits price with 40% increase reaching $2.6/kg.
The minimum price for Iftar-dinner prepared at home for an averaged-income household (4 persons), depending on ingredients is estimated to be between $5 up to $12.


Three Years in Office: What Ministry of Industry has done?
This year Dr. Rouhani and his cabinet concluded their third year. Mr. Nematzade, Minister of Industry and Trade, gave a report to the new parliament about his achievements.
Over the last four months after lifting the sanctions, his ministry has succeeded to finalize the agreement for 12 projects with foreigners, attracting $500 million investment.
He also notes that over the last three years, 46000 new business licenses have been granted where 1.1 million new jobs are expected to be created.
In 2016 Iran’s ranking in Doing Business is 118 between 189 countries, although nothing to be proud of, but this ranking was 152 before his entrance in the office.


Doing Business in Iran?
According to the World Bank, in 2016 Iran’s ranking for foreign trade has been worse than ever: 167 among 189 countries.
The ranking is calculated using many different factors such as the time needed to verify documents, the time goods are stopped at the boarders etc.
It says that to export a typical good from Iran, average total time needed is 308 hours, including paper works, domestic transit time, stop at the boarder. The total cost is $1266.
To import a general product to Iran, it takes 485 hours and would cost $1457 to get through all these processes.