TEHRAN - Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, chairman of the Expediency Council, on Monday called for immediate yet calculated planning to tame excess liquidity, moving in the direction of production boost and getting out of recession.

According to people familiar with the matter, liquidity, inherited from previous administrations and yet uncurbed, is one of Iran’s major economic challenges.  
Rafsanjani, who got the title of “Commander of Construction” during his presidency from 1989 to 1997, made the remarks in a gathering attended by a clutch of former governor generals, ISNA reported.
Scratching the surface of the unfair sanctions regime imposed on Iran and the ensuing restraints for Iranian producers, Rafsanjani said, “Instead of working out an appropriate solution, and by falling back on oil revenues, unplanned loan schemes were enforced merely to manipulate employment rate.”

This, instead, gave rise to the production sector being bogged down incrementally in debt, he noted.

The remark is a clear reference to the Ahmadinejad administration, which doled out loans at a fast pace to people without proper planning.

For more than a decade, Iran was in a deadlock with the West over its nuclear program, resulting in harsh economic sanctions especially when the European Union introduced oil sanctions against Iran in January 2012 and froze Iranian assets.
However, the signing of a nuclear deal, dubbed as the JCPOA, in July 2015 removed restrictions on banking, money transfers, insurance, trade, transport, and technology procurement, among others, resulting in a burst of diplomatic activity in the country.

Rafsanjani added, “Recently, the government has taken serious and right decisions to shore up economic growth through re-activating small and medium-sized enterprises and has announced the initiatives.”

The seasoned politician continues to be upbeat about the future of the country because “Iran has the potential to boost its economy.”

AK/PA