The Iranian president had a difficult choice in front of him: to privilege public health or to avoid an economic collapse. Hassan Rohani opted Wednesday for a revival of the economy of the country, at bay because of the rigor of the American embargo, becoming the first country to emerge from confinement.
“Of course, we do not want new victims of the coronavirus, but, at the same time, we do not want people to starve,” said Rohani on Wednesday. He added: “Before, the struggle was done by staying at home. Today, it is done by resuming economic activities. We have no other way in front of us”.
The government has therefore planned to lift its containment and relax the measures in three phases. First of all, from this Saturday, two thirds of “low risk” activities can resume in the provinces. A week later, this authorization will be granted in the capital, Tehran. The third phase will allow activities to resume in places of worship, sports facilities, party rooms and hairdressing salons.
In fact, however, many workers did not wait for this authorization. Faced with loss of income, a need to feed themselves and bills (water, gas, electricity) which accumulate, they had already reopened the shops. Especially since the working population in Iran is made up mostly of small self-employed. “Many of these companies are not registered with the government and therefore the state has no means to help them, unlike families who receive an allowance every month,” explains, daily Le Monde, Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, professor of economics at Virginia Tech University. “If the state opts for containment, these small businesses will collapse.”
The American veto
Hassan Rohani urged the International Monetary Fund on Wednesday to grant his country an emergency loan of five billion dollars that he had asked to fight the pandemic. “We are a member of the IMF (…). If there were to be discrimination between Iran and others in the provision of credit, neither we nor the general public would tolerate that. do not fulfill their obligations in this difficult situation, the world will judge them differently, “he said.
Iran had announced on March 12 that it had appealed to the responsibility of the IMF, which, in a very exceptional way, Tehran said it had asked for help in the face of the new coronavirus.
The Iranian economy has been hit hard since the reinstatement of U.S. sanctions after Washington’s unilateral withdrawal in 2018 from the international Tehran nuclear deal reached three years earlier.
And, the Trump administration, which is waging a campaign of “maximum pressure” from Washington against Iran, is using its veto to block the granting of credit to Tehran, arguing that the Islamic Republic would use the funds to develop a military nuclear program and supporting militias in Iraq.
“It will remain in history that the White House is not only engaged in economic terrorism, but is now also engaged in the health field,” denounced the Iranian president.
US sanctions are suffocating the Iranian economy. On paper, humanitarian goods (medicines, medical equipment in particular) escape restrictions. But in reality, they are subject to the American blockade, international banks generally preferring to refuse a transaction involving Iran, whatever the product concerned, rather than running the risk of being exposed to reprisals by the United States.
Germany, France and Britain, still party to the nuclear deal, recently reported having delivered medical equipment to Iran as part of the Instex barter mechanism to bypass U.S. sanctions, used for the first time.
Fear of a second wave
The economic recovery raises fears of the worst in hospitals, mainly in Tehran. While the situation has tended to stabilize in recent days, the lifting of confinement could lead to a second wave of patients in the care services. “We are worried about this resumption of activity which may lead to a return to the catastrophic period of the beginning of March”, says a doctor to Le Monde. At that time, the epidemic could not be brought under control and the health system was saturated, causing a health disaster.
Officially, Iran claims that so far the new coronavirus has killed nearly 4,000 people and reached more than 64,500 across the country. But the country is known for cultivating opacity. Abroad, many wonder about the figures published by the authorities, which they suspect to be underestimated. The country is also considered to be the home of the virus in the Middle East.
(with AFP)
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