The price of bread, the staple food of most Iranian households, increased 30% on Monday. The administration has allowed provincial governors to increase the prices by up to 30%, the government spokesman Mohammad Nobakht said in a press conference after the cabinet ministers’ session. He said the government will continue paying subsidies for wheat at 6650 rials ($2.4 based on the official rate) per kilo to flour factories and bakeries but simultaneously allows bakeries to increase bread price by 30% in different provinces and in accordance with provincial necessities to compensate for the increase in side expenses. “In the current year, which started March 21, the government allocated 70 trillion rials ($2.6 billion based on official rate) in subsidies for wheat in order to both protect bakeries and improve bread quality.” Nobakht expressed hope that complaints about the quality of bread or its weight will dwindle and bakers will not incur losses.
