The government will allocate subsidized foreign currency at the rate of 42,000 rials per dollar for the import of 80,000 tons of copy and print paper in the current Iranian year (March 2019-20), says Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Abbas Salehi.
“A total of 39,000 tons of paper were imported last [fiscal] year [March 2018-19] compared with 55,000 tons in the year before. The decline in imports has destabilized the paper market,” IRNA quoted Salehi as saying.
Noting that paper has been listed in Iran among "essential and strategic goods even at the time of Iran-Iraq war [1980-88]", he said shortage of paper would create as many problems as meat and chicken shortage.
Publishers have seen an astonishing 340% increase in the prices of coated paper used in printing and packaging industry over the past year.
Many publishers and print media companies have been pushed out of the market ever since the recurrent episodes of paper price surges began.
As the government allocates subsidized foreign currency at the rate of 42,000 rials per US dollar to paper imports, it’s nearly a year now that the Iranian rial is quoted above 130,000 rials to the dollar in the open market.
The considerable difference between the two rates has resulted in widespread corruption in the paper market, just like other markets whose preferred players have received subsidized dollars.
According to Mohammad Reza Modoudi, the caretaker of Trade Promotion Organization, there is no telling whether subsidized foreign currencies was spent on importing essential goods.
"Pricing goods, a hallmark of command economy, is known to beget corruption and rent-seeking behavior," he told the Persian daily Iran recently.
Paper has been listed in Iran among "essential and strategic goods even at the time of the Iran-Iraq war (1980-88)
Investigative reporting by local journalists, including those with the Persian daily Shargh, has revealed that if only €22 million worth of subsidized currency granted to two front companies had been rightfully spent on importing newsprint, the ongoing paper crisis facing newspaper and magazine owners would have been resolved by now.
Referring to different types of paper in Iran’s market, including tissue, packaging and printing paper, Deputy Industries Minister Farshad Moqimi said Iran currently produces 153,000 tons, imports 6,000 tons and exports 10,000 tons of tissue paper.
“Last year, we produced 725,000 tons and imported 22,000 tons of packaging paper and exported around 188,000 tons. It’s not wrong to say that we are now exporting the same volume we used to import five years ago. The main problem of the industry is printing and writing paper which is up to 95% dependent on imports,” he said.
“The country needs about 320,000 tons of printing paper annually. The ministry registered orders for the import of 442,000 tons of printing paper last year. Imports and production stood at 270,000 and 22,000 tons, respectively, which shows that the country needed 28,000 tons of paper last year, but were not imported.”
Leader of Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei called on Culture Minister Abbas Salehi and Industries Minister Reza Rahmani to work out a solution during his visit to the 32nd Tehran International Book Fair last month.
According to Abolfazl Roghani Golpayegani, the head of Paper and Cardboard Producers’ Syndicate, the Ministry of Industries, Mining and Trade is in charge of order registration—the first step in importing any type of commodity—whereas the Culture Ministry decides upon the market mechanism for paper distribution.
“The absence of cooperation between the two ministries and the timely allocation of foreign currency for imports are to blame for the dramatic rise in paper price,” Golpayegani told Mehr News Agency.
