Hossein Raghfar in an interview with ILNA said that energy price can be increased provided that purchase power of people is increased concurrently, and as long as people’s purchase power is getting weak, there should be no price hike in the energy carriers.
IRAN NEWS ECONOMIC DESK
He also criticized the reasons for increasing the energy price adding that such reasons have been used in the past three decades and have had no significant impacst on consumption.
Raghfar also urged the government to stop paying subsidies to semi-private companies, adding that it is waste of subsidies as those companies enjoy other lenience and concessions.
He also blasted the government’s economic policies which make the people poorer and they are good for a certain group of people who are after rent-seeking.
He reiterated that policies of Majlis and the government are to the benefit of rich or rent-seeking people and they should be blamed for current economic condition.
Raghfar added that one of the reasons for the current lock in the national economy is that salaries have been increased by 30 percent in recent years but the cost of living has become quintupled. So people’s purchase power has weakened and it has led to deepening of recession in the country.
He reiterated that any increase in the price of energy would lead to the increase in the living cost and again for another price hike in energy price, and this defective cycle will help corruption be generated.
