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July 2009, Nos. 52&53


Cover Story

10th President

Monetary and Financial Challenges

The next president should make economic problems and unemployment his main concern and admit that they cannot be solved unless through economic liberalization, import controls, and increasing competitiveness of domestic products.


Economic problems constitute the most important challenge to be faced by the 10th president. The main economic challenges include inflation, unemployment, economic instability and absence of investment incentives. Economic instability has led to capital flight in recent years. The next president should have and announce clear plans for solving such problems as inflation, unemployment, economic stabilization and encouraging investment in productive economic sectors and also explain how he is going to implement general policies related to Article 44 of the Constitution. In addition to declaring his plans in a totally transparent manner, the next president must also name members of his economic team in the interval remained before inauguration of the 10th president.

Those who have been prominent figures in various economic sectors and who are experienced with brilliant track records should be introduced as members of the next president’s economic team. The next president should clarify his stances on the Central Bank of Iran and explain it to experts as well as lay people. He should clearly announce that whether he wants to continue to hold the Central Bank in government’s hands or respect its independence and provide suitable grounds for stabilization of the national currency, inflation and the banking system by doing away with dictated policies which do not conform to scientific principles. The next president should analyze about 350 billion dollars that the country has earned through oil sales as well as gas and non-oil exports and tell the nation what has happened to the hefty sums that have been paid to speculators and rent-seekers on the pretext of launching small businesses. He should clarify how much of that money has been spent on real production in order to prevent repetition of such mistakes.

The 10th president should take a clear position on supervisory laws of banks and offer his solutions to prevent deviations in those laws which are the source of many economic and social problems that are currently nagging production plants and have made a lot of people jobless.

The president should make decisions on huge capital that has been earned through oil and gas and is now being used to bring prosperity to production and agricultural sectors in China and he should offer necessary solutions to control imports and help domestic products thrive.

The next president should explain his solutions for reduction of unemployment and present social problems and see whether he is able to give transparent and true figures of what is going on in the economy or not?

The tenth president should decide about sensitive posts like minister of economic affairs and finance and governor of the Central Bank of Iran, and also important issues like dissolution of specialized councils which have been restored by the parliament’s law. He should announce his plans to solve production and employment problems and tell us what he can do to get rid of imports which have flooded the country. The next government should have clear plans on social issues, democracy, human rights and civil society. The next president should make economic problems and unemployment his main concern and admit that they cannot be solved unless through economic liberalization, import controls, and increasing competitiveness of domestic products. They will be only solved after the economy is freed from politically motivated decisions and is based on firm scientific principles through expert studies.

The next president should take a clear stand on the implementation of Majlis laws and the Fifth Economic Development Plan and prove his commitment to putting those laws into force without violating them or preventing their implementation by presenting incorrect interpretations of those laws. They should not do things which will face parliamentarians with fait accompli and make them comply with government’s measures.

Another important point which should be observed by the next president is to implement laws pertaining to the Oil Stabilization Fund with due care; it is a wealth which should be transferred to future generations. Although we use it to solve the existing problems, but it really belongs to next generations and should be held in reserve for the rainy day when oil prices may severely fall. Last but not least, the next government should take advantage of academicians in executive posts and for management of sensitive economic centers and to take lessons from what has happened thus far to set out a correct the future path.

 

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  July 2009
Nos. 52&53