Located in Nimroz province in southwestern Afghanistan, the 32-bed hospital is ready for operation, he said, IRNA reported on Sunday.

Referring to the services that will be provided in this hospital, he explained that the medical center has a general operating room, gynecology, pediatrics, dental departments, dermatology, maternity and midwifery services, ultrasound, laboratory, nursing services, vaccinations, pharmacy, general practitioner and specialist.

A hospital has also been set up in Kabul city that is being equipped and prepared, he concluded.

IRCS services worldwide

At present, the Iranian Red Crescent Society provides medical services to people in 13 Asian, African, and Latin American countries.

Currently, some 14 medical facilities are offering humanitarian, relief, and health services to the deprived people in 13 countries, including Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, the United Arab Emirates, Bolivia, Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Congo, Kenya, Lebanon, Mali, Niger, and Ecuador.

The IRCS polyclinic center includes various departments such as laboratory, pharmacy, radiology and physiotherapy, and general practitioners along with obstetricians, gynecologists, internal medicine, pediatrics, ophthalmologists, and dentists

The important point in establishing medical centers abroad is that all of these centers are self-governing and earn their income by providing services to patients in the mentioned countries,” Karim Hemmati, IRCS head, noted on January 13.

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“At present, Iran’s economic condition and living conditions are not in a situation to sacrifice the people. We must change the situation,” he said.

Hemmati said the main reason for his presidential candidacy, considering his expertise and past work, is that he thinks he can bring the country to the right track.

“We have had a structural flaw in economic governance over the past few decades that has led to unfavorable trends in macroeconomic variables. One of these trends is investment. Until investment in the country is not developed, other macro variables, including production and economic growth, will be in trouble,” he opined.

Hemmati, who holds a PhD in economics from the University of Tehran, pointed out that another issue is productivity.

“The other issue is productivity. In the long-term plan envisaged for the country, a significant part of eight percent economic growth was supposed to be from productivity, but unfortunately, not only did it not grow, but it was negative, and this caused economic growth to be hampered,” he stated.

The presidential candidate said that the economic growth is an important issue and should be looked at from different angles.

“The most important issue of production is that the government should not pressure the private sector,” he said.

Hemmati said it is the duty of the government to invest in infrastructure and let the private sector to do the investment and encourage it.

He said, “It is necessary for the private sector to have confidence in the economic and social conditions of the country. We should not have uncertainty in the economy.”

Hemmati stated that he believes that Iran must focus on economic growth and control inflation at the same time. Because if there is inflation, he said, there will be no growth because inflation intensifies an abuse of the market.

“The most important issue to control inflation is liquidity and part of the liquidity goes back to the relationship between the government and the central bank,” he explained.

Hemmati believes that banks have to connect people, who have financial problems and cannot purchase goods, to producers who cannot sell their goods.

“The only way is to give credit cards and these cards are only for purchasing and you cannot cash them. The infrastructure is provided and now one bank is doing it on a trial basis,” the presidential candidate said.

The presidential elections will be held on June 18.

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In written answers given to questions by American economic news website Bloomberg published on Sunday, Hemmati said that Iran has been insisting on removal of banking sanctions as a condition to return to full compliance with the JCPOA, the international agreement on Iran’s nuclear program that was abandoned in 2018 by a former government in Washington.

“The removal of sanctions against the central bank, Iranian banks, SWIFT, and any money transfer between them and major foreign correspondent banks, needs to be verified,” said Hemmati making a reference to the financial massaging service in Belgium which refuses to clear transactions involving the CBI and other Iranian banks because of US sanctions.

Iran and the U.S. have been engaged in indirect talks with other global powers in the Austrian capital Vienna as they seek to revive the JCPOA.

U.S. president Joe Biden said on Friday that the United States is ready to lift many of the sanctions imposed on Iran in recent years but he indicated that Iranian side has not been happy with the move and is pressing for a more inclusive sanctions relief.

Hemmati told the Bloomberg he was hopeful that a deal could be reached in the talks in Vienna. He said that Iran would be able to verify whether the sanctions have been relieved from the banks.

“Personally, I am hopeful about the trend of negotiations … We will make the verification in our own ways,” he said, according to remarks confirmed on the CBI website on Sunday.

Meanwhile Hemmati in a TV program on Sunday night said that the current value of the forex in the market is not real and Iran’s national currency will gain value very soon.

He said soon the CBI will announce its new policy and reiterated that two major factors were behind the current inflation rate in the country.

He said as long as the ratio of imports and exports is not balanced, the inflation will continue because the country is forced to use its forex reserves in the CBI. He added that the second factor is the government budget and the non-oil revenues should be equal to the costs.

Hemmati once again reiterated that the Central Bank is not a political body and it decides based on the economic facts and it will soon issue its new policy. He added that the policy will be on reducing the inflation in the country and the parliament and government should resolve problems.

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Two weeks ago, it was approved by the Money and Credit Council of Iran that those whose businesses are faced with problems due to the spread of the virus can postpone paying their installments for three months, IRNA reported.

The new virus, a respiratory disease also known as COVID-19, emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in Hubei Province late last year. It has infected more than 180,000 people worldwide and killed over 7,000.

Other measures have been taken to facilitate banking transactions at home in an effort to contain the coronavirus spread in the country, such as raising the ceiling of electronic money transfer through ATMs to $2,380 per day and increasing electronic banking services.

In Iran, the rapid spread of coronavirus has infected some 16,169 people and killed 988, according to official figures released on Tuesday.

He appreciated efforts by the domestic banks’ staff who make sacrifices under the present tough circumstances to provide people with sustainable services, stressing that measures, such as further promotion of telecommuting, have been employed to reduce the infection risk for them.

He stressed that Iran had never asked for a loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in the past 60 years, noting that, “This is among the rights of our country and the smallest step [in the fight against the virus]. We have submitted a request [to the IMF] and are waiting to see what decision those claiming to be promoting justice in the international arena will make and whether US interference would impact the process or not. We are following up on the case on a daily basis.”

Iran has huge monetary resources outside the country which are all blocked by the US, Hemmati said, adding since the beginning of the current Iranian calendar year (started in March 2019), the CBI has supplied $39.2 billion for imports.

In May 2018, President Donald Trump pulled the US out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), signed between Iran and the P5+1, and reimposed Washington’s sanctions on Tehran. In the aftermath of the US withdrawal, foreign banks were forced by Washington to freeze Iranian assets.

The sanctions have also hindered the delivery of international humanitarian aid, drugs and medical equipment to Iran amid the country’s efforts to contain the coronavirus spread.

Hemmati noted that since March 2019, Iran has imported basic goods and medical equipment worth $14.8 billion, giving assurance that the country is faced with no problem in terms of meeting the domestic needs.

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