With economic and welfare policies adopted by the government, next year’s inflation rate is highly likely to plunge further, Ali Rabiee, minister of cooperatives, labor and social welfare, said on Tuesday in Hamedan. A reduction in inflation would improve welfare standards in the country, the minister noted.
He said what makes the current government different from the previous ones is the so-called “welfare policies” the administration has adopted, adding that such policies “must to be aimed at eradicating social inequality and unfairness.”
He said that with the 30,000-billion-rial annual budget, the labor ministry is undertaking programs to fight different aspects of poverty including “food poverty, literacy poverty and health poverty.”
Earlier, Rabiee said that over seven million people in Iran are suffering from absolute poverty to the extent that their food security is in jeopardy.
He also said that 300,000 people in the country are under compulsory social insurance coverage, adding, “Unfortunately the unemployment rate in the country is too high, making the insured people invisible.”
He went on to say that expansion of cheap insurance schemes will help uproot ‘health poverty’, which he described as the “country’s gravest social problem.”
He said 10,000 and 20,000 billion rials have been allocated to the employment, industry and agriculture sectors respectively, adding that the funding will be provided from the revenue generated through the Subsidy Reform Plan.
