More Iranians Are Bartering Belongings For Food
A man has put his sneakers on sale in exchange for meat, and another is ready to barter his books for rice; this is how Iranians are dealing with rising food prices.
A man has put his sneakers on sale in exchange for meat, and another is ready to barter his books for rice; this is how Iranians are dealing with rising food prices.
A report published by Shargh newspaper on Sunday has given several such examples of personal ads put on online sale platforms by Iranians who have resorted to selling their personal belongings to be able to provide food for their families.
The article said that the high rate of inflation and the resulting poverty has led to the new phenomenon, in which more and more people have resorted to exchanging their household and personal items for food.
According to the report, Iranian online sale platforms are full of ads by people who want to exchange their clothes, shoes, vacuum cleaners, and heaters with chicken, oil, rice or beans. For example, in one case a shirt is priced at about 2,600,000 rials – or less than $8 – which can buy about one kilogram of meat or about four kilograms of chicken.
The report also said that fruit prices have increased so much that people have started to buy fruits one piece at a time although Iranians were used to buying fruits in kilos when the prices were lower.
Iran’s point-to-point inflation for the previous Iranian calendar month – which ended November 21 – was about 50 percent with food inflation recorded at above 70 percent in 12 provinces.
The inflation rate for food items was especially high in the province of Sistan-Baluchestan, reaching a whopping 84 percent, with Lorestan province hitting 78 percent to be at second place. The two provinces are low-income regions where the quality of the items they consume are also lower than in other provinces.
The figures indicated a slower rise in prices as food price inflation reached even 100 percent in some provinces in previous months. According to the data published by the Statistical Center of Iran (SCI) in late July, the overall nationwide point-to-point annual food inflation rate in June 2022 compared with the same period in 2021 was 87 percent, but in four provinces the rate reached almost 100 percent.
Most price increases happened since early May when the government scrapped a food import subsidy to save around $15 billion annually. The move immediately triggered a massive rise in prices for basic food staples, such as bread, dairy products, cooking oil and meat.
Although the government has repeatedly said its oil exports are steadily increasing despite sanctions by the United States, economic conditions keep deteriorating, with Iran's battered currency, the rial, hitting historic lows in recent months with sporadic recuperations. The battered rial has dropped to a low of 370,000 against the US dollar, an almost 50-percent decline in 15 months. It was trading at 280,000 in August 2021 when the current hardliner president Ebrahim Raisi was elected.
The Iranian currency began to lose most of its value in 2018 when the United States pulled out of the nuclear accord known as JCPOA and imposed crippling economic sanctions. Since then, the currency has fallen more than tenfold against the dollar. Although the Islamic Republic has been able to partly circumvent the sanctions by illicit oil exports to China at discounted prices, the volume of around one million barrels per day is not sufficient to sustain the economy, which is mostly dependent on oil export revenues.
The former chief of the Iranian parliament's foreign policy and national security committee Hesmatollah Falahatpished called Iran's subdued reaction to China's suggestion that Tehran should negotiate the ownership of three Persian Gulf islands with Abu Dhabi as humiliating.
Meanwhile, China's endorsement of the December 9 GCC statement appears to have torpedoed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's much-heralded policy pf “Looking East.”
In his interview with Didban Iran website, Falahatpisheh accused those in charge of Iran's foreign policy of having illusions about strategic ties with China. He was obliquely pointing at Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the architect of Iran's "Looking East" policy since 2018, that called for relying on China and Russia in defying the United States.
Earlier, Khamenei had called China "an independent and trustworthy" partner and had urged expanding Iran's ties with Beijing during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in January 2016.
Falahatp[isheh also recalled that that Russians have sacrificed Iranian forces in Syria by putting them in the frontline of the military campaign to keep Bashar Assad in power. He said: In a world where countries maintain relations based on mutual interests, we see that the number of Iran's enemies in the world are on the rise.
The conservative politician said China's action has been a political shock because a partner signed on a statement undermining Iran's territorial integrity. Falahatpisheh suggested that Tehran should change its policy toward Beijing.
He also criticized Iranian officials for not officially summoning China's ambassador in Tehran. Foreign Ministry officials in Tehran said they had a "meeting" with Beijing's ambassador and told him that Iran is not pleased with what China did. This was so humiliating, Falahatpisheh said.
He reminded Iranian diplomats that China and Russia basically do not believe in strategic relations with a country like Iran, which is weak and isolated.
Meanwhile, in an interview with Rouydad24 website in Tehran, Mehdi Motaharnia, a lecturer on international relations, said Iran was counting on China, but China's behavior showed what matters for other countries is their national interest rather than fixated ideologies. He added: In politics, there are no permanent friends or enemies.
Motaharnia argued that China's behavior should not surprise anyone. What has surprised Iranians is that they were heavily under the influence of their government's propaganda about having a strategic alliance with China. But that propaganda based on wishful thinking was meant to strike a balance in foreign policy to fill the void after the US withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal.
While Iran continues its “permanent” confrontation with the United States, it wishes to pretend that it has big allies such as Russia and China that prevent its international isolation, Motaharnia said, adding that neither Russia nor China see Iran as a strategic partner. It is Iran that believes it can be a strategic market for those countries.
"This is wrong," said Motaharnia, adding that "It is Iran's wrong perception of international relations that agitates the public opinion in Iran. China is simply following its own interests in the region. So, it is looking for more stable countries to guarantee its profits. This is what pushes China toward Arab countries, particularly Saudi Arabia."
He added that "the tension resulting from the protests in Iran is also another factor that encourages China to reach out to Saudi Arabia, where it uses the term 'The Gulf' instead of Persian Gulf. Motaharnia charged that there is no realism in Iran's domestic and international policies and Tehran is paying the price for doing away with realism."
Indirect US-Iranian talks to salvage a 2015 nuclear pact between global powers and Iran, which Washington exited in 2018, stalled in September. The UN nuclear chief has voiced concern over a recent announcement by Tehran that it was boosting enrichment capacity.
Iran reportedly has amassed enough 60-percent enriched uranium that if it decides to purify the fissile material further, it could be sufficient for at least one nuclear bomb.
"If Iran gets an operational nuclear weapon, all bets are off," Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud said in an on-stage interview at the World Policy Conference in Abu Dhabi when asked about such a scenario.
"We are in a very dangerous space in the region...you can expect that regional states will certainly look towards how they can ensure their own security."
The statement came shortly after the visit of China’s President Xi Jinping to Saudi Arabia. Riyadh is seen trying to reduce its reliance on the United States. Reports last year said that Saudi Arabia appears to be building ballistic missiles with Chinese help.
The nuclear talks have stalled with Western powers accusing Iran of raising unreasonable demands, and focus shifting to the Russia-Ukraine war as well as domestic unrest in Iran over the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini.
Though Riyadh remained "skeptical" about the Iran nuclear deal, Prince Faisal said it supported efforts to revive the pact "on condition that it be a starting point, not an end point" for a stronger deal with Tehran.
Sunni-ruled Gulf Arab states have pressed for a stronger agreement that addresses their concerns about Shi'ite Iran's missiles and drone program and network of regional proxies.
"The signs right now are not very positive unfortunately," Prince Faisal said.
"We hear from the Iranians that they have no interest in a nuclear weapons program, it would be very comforting to be able to believe that. We need more assurance on that level."
Iran says its nuclear technology is solely for civil purposes, but its policy of enriching uranium to 60 percent has no civilian use and only a short step away from bomb-level purity of 90 percent.
A senior Emirati official said on Saturday that there was an opportunity to revisit "the whole concept" of the nuclear pact given the current spotlight on Tehran's weapons with Western states accusing Russia of using Iranian drones to attack targets in Ukraine. Iran and Russia deny the charges.
Anwar Gargash, the diplomatic advisor to the president of the UAE, reiterated a call for "explicit" security assurances from traditional Western allies, especially in dealing with the threat from Iranian drones that Gulf states have long warned about.
It was not until these weapons "made it into the Ukraine theatre" that they were "catapulted" into the spotlight, and "suddenly the world rediscovered this issue", Gargash said.
"This is an opportunity for all of us to come and revisit the whole concept," Gargash said, referring to the Iran nuclear pact.
With reporting by Reuters