President-elect Hassan Rouhani said Sunday that the government should avoid a planned economy, instead bringing in economic experts to manage the situation.
Rouhani made his comments in a meeting with senior figures from the Iranian Chamber of Commerce at the Expediency Council’s Strategic Research Center. He later tweeted the key message from his Persian-language Twitter account:
#روحانی دولت بايد ناظر و سياستگذار دقيق باشد و از اقتصاد دستوري پرهيز کند و فرصت بدهد فعالان اقتصادي امور تصديگري اقتصاد را به دست بگيرند.
— دکتر حسن روحانی (@rouhani92) July 8, 2013
The economy — devastated by years of mismanagement and increasingly harsh Western sanctions — will be Rouhani’s biggest challenge. The President-elect’s comments came a day after the Central Bank halved the national currency’s official rate against the dollar, in another attempt to shore up the economy.
Meanwhile, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had a different message: Iran’s economy is stronger and able to “deal with fluctuations more effectively”.
The outgoing President said in a televised interview that his administration would leave a “gift” to Rouhani — Iran’s foreign reserves, which he claimed are over $100 billion.
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