ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has said that his country’s economy has performed better than advanced economies such as Germany during the coronavirus pandemic, at a time that more than 60 million Iranians rely on government handouts to survive.
“While the economy of an advanced country like Germany has faced problems because of the coronavirus outbreak, our economy has better conditions thanks to the efforts by production companies and economic sectors,” Rouhani said during a meeting of the coronavirus taskforce on Saturday.
Iran’s economy is in a dire shape due mainly to mismanagement, US sanctions, low oil prices and the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. The economy is expected to contract by a whopping 12 percent in 2020, leaving hundreds of thousands of workers unemployed or in desperate need of government subsidies.
The national currency has continued to slide, setting record lows several times this year.
Earlier this year, one US dollar traded for 16,000 tomans in Tehran, and has now jumped to almost 30,000 tomans.
In recent days, the government paid the 11th round of what it described as “livelihood packages” – a payment of less than $10 – to over 60 million Iranians. Rouhani’s government said that the funds come from raising the price of petrol from 1,000 to 3,000 per liter last year, which prompted a wave of demonstrations and the deaths of as many as 1,500 protesters by security forces, according to Amnesty International.
“A family of one will receive 55,000 tomans ($1.90), two will receive 103,000 tomans ($3.70) … families of five and more will receive 205,000 tomans ($7.00) livelihood packages”, the state run IRNA reported on Wednesday.
Rouhani’s comments come at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic has forced the government to shut communal places such as mosques, libraries and public institutions in Tehran to slow the spread of the virus that has wreaked havoc in the country.
The death toll from coronavirus rose to 26,746 on Saturday, with a total 468,119 people having been infected across the country.
