As Iran enters deliberations over the draft budget for the Iranian year 1405 (March 2026–March 2027), the long-running debate over preferential foreign exchange has reached a critical juncture.…
Feature
Iran’s Seventh Development Plan is already falling short of its ambitious industrial and mining growth targets, raising fresh doubts about the credibility of medium-term economic planning and the…
As Iran’s economy grapples with sanctions, chronic inflation and persistent exchange-rate volatility, some policymakers continue to defend a system of multiple exchange rates combined with tighter…
Iran’s trade relations with the Caucasus region reveal a striking paradox. Armenia and Azerbaijan, two immediate neighbors with comparable geographic proximity and market potential, have followed…
Iran’s latest growth figures, attributed to the Central Bank and circulated unofficially through local media, confirm that the economy has remained stuck in recessionary territory during the first…
Hamid Mollazadeh
Iran’s manufacturing sector is increasingly constrained not by demand or capacity, but by a deepening financing bottleneck that has turned production into a daily struggle for survival rather than…
Hamid Mollazadeh
Reducing inflation to a single headline figure obscures its profoundly unequal impact across Iranian society. While official statistics present inflation as uniform, households experience it very…
Rising trade tensions have once again pushed tariff policy to the center of the global economic order, reshaping supply chains, logistics routes and pricing mechanisms.
Iran’s direct access to the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman gives the country significant potential for a maritime-based economy, a capacity that has long remained underutilized.
Hamid Mollazadeh
As Iran approaches the submission of its annual budget bill to parliament, the debate over oil once again dominates fiscal discussions. Despite long-standing policy…
Economic sanctions on Iran are no longer a temporary external shock; they have become embedded in the country’s economic structure, steadily reshaping household welfare.
Neda Vahidi
In today’s Iran, where rising inflation steadily reshapes household budgets, fitness can feel like a luxury few can afford. Gym memberships in northern Tehran’s upscale…
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) form the backbone of Iran’s industrial sector and account for a large share of employment. Yet recent evidence suggests these firms are under growing…
Mohammad Hashemi
Mental well-being in Iran has gradually moved from a side topic to a daily concern. Years of economic pressure, rising costs, and general uncertainty have reshaped not only…
Iran’s industrial sector is facing a deepening labor shortage that is no longer cyclical but structural, reflecting economic strain, shifting worker preferences and a growing mismatch between…
Hamid Mollazadeh
More than a decade under layered international sanctions has forced Iran to redesign not only its energy trade routes but also the very concept of energy diplomacy.
Despite the restoration of diplomatic ties and the reopening of embassies, economic relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia remain at one of their weakest historical points.
Economic data from the first half of the Iranian calendar year 1404 (March–September 2025) signal a serious slowdown in Iran’s industrial sector.
Iran’s policymakers have set increasingly ambitious targets for expanding the country’s foreign trade, including a 23% rise in exports under the Seventh Development Plan. Yet the country’s…
Hamid Mollazadeh
Iran’s equity market has entered one of its strongest phases of retail liquidity inflow in recent years, marking a decisive shift after months of persistent capital flight.
Iran’s latest national accounts data show an economy that continues to hover around zero growth, with both demand-side and supply-side weaknesses preventing any meaningful rebound.
Hamid Mollazadeh
For more than a decade, Iran’s refining sector has operated under a structural paradox: rising domestic fuel demand against an industry that has added virtually no new large…
