Iranians reel from US sanctions
dubai — Iranians fear an even more painful squeeze on living costs after additional US sanctions take effect on Monday, from businesses struggling to buy raw materials to the sick and elderly unable to afford life-saving medicines.
The United States will reapply curbs to the country’s vital petroleum and banking sectors on Monday in an effort to rein in its arch foe’s nuclear, missile and regional activities.
Iran’s clerical rulers have played down the US move, but many ordinary Iranians appear apprehensive.
“All the prices are going higher every day ... I cannot imagine what will happen after 13 Aban (Nov. 4). I am scared. I am worried. I am desperate,” said elementary school teacher Pejman Sarafnejad, 43, a father of three in Tehran.
“I cannot even buy rice to feed my children or pay my rent.”
The daily struggle to make ends meet has been getting harder for months: The economy was battered by the reimposition of a first raft of US curbs in August after Washington’s pullout from a nuclear deal between Tehran and global powers in May.
Foreign businesses of all types, ranging from oil companies, trading houses to shipping, have stopped doing business with Iran for fear of incurring US penalties.
Iran’s leadership says Tehran will not succumb to pressure to halt its missile programmes or to change its regional policy. Yet while some Iranians back their leaders’ defiance, others are fearful that the economy, weakened by years of sanctions, mismanagement and corruption, may collapse when the US puts more pressure on the world’s Number 3 crude exporter.
Since the reimposition of the first round of curbs in August, prices of
All the prices are going higher every day ... I cannot imagine what will happen after Nov 4. I am scared. I am worried. I am desperate.
Pejman Sarafnejad, An Iranain teacher
bread, cooking oil and other staples have soared and the rial national currency has fallen sharply.
Rice, one of the staples of Iran’s diet, has more than tripled in price since last year because of the rial’s fall. — Reuters
Ordinary Iranians fear cuts in Iran’s oil sales could be the ultimate hammer blow to the economy, since energy exports are still the country’s main source of earnings.
Iranian leaders hope sanctions waivers granted to eight buyers of Iranian crude, combined with rising oil prices, will compensate for a reduction oil export volumes.
But even without the new measures due on Monday, Iranian
businessmen have been finding it harder to cope.
Some 70 per cent of small factories, businesses and workshops have already started to shut down in the past months due to lack of raw materials. —