Financial Tribune - If the past is anything to go by, as soon as fuel becomes costly, price gauging and inflation follow. General prices increase at least by 14% and the number of people unable to make ends meet goes up

Although most energy officials, namely Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh, say that raising gasoline prices would be the last resort to fight rampant smuggling and curtail rising consumption, several senior economists disagree.

Farshad Momeni, a faculty member of the Economics Department at Allameh Tabatabai University in Tehran, Hossein Raghfar, faculty member and economic expert at Alzahra University and Ehsan Soltani, economic researcher, have clear reservations and are strongly opposed to such moves.

"Such policies (increasing fuel prices) is a recipe for disaster and will make life for the general public more difficult," Momeni was quoted as saying by ILNA.