Ishaq Jahangiri who was speaking in the opening ceremony of Iranplast Exhibition on Wednesday believed that the most pressing challenges facing Iran’s economy were unemployment, lack of public welfare, and lagging development; “Iran has been located in a region where insecurity and instability are familiar faces while itself is an island of stability; oil and gas reservoirs provide Iran with an attraction and Iran should tackle its economic challenges fairly easily given the international demand for energy and the unique stability in political terms,” he told the ceremony. “Planning and policy-making should bring Iran to the focus of the world to receive much of the gains of development for which we have excellent capacities and resources at home.”
Jahangiri believed that Iran’s civil society had come to terms with the fact that the first step toward any future was to solve economic problems; “Resistance Economy is a common discourse and has found welcome by different social groups; having hit an agreed-upon approach in implementing the Resistance Economy, we will be in need of a common orientation; Leader of the Islamic Republic has devolved this duty to government and first vice-president as the major body of decision-making in arbitrating difference of views in implementing Resistance Economy policies,” he added.
Jahangiri believed that a great salubrious feature of the Resistance Economy was reliance on countries indigenous capacities especially on fossil reservoirs which could find extensive markets outside the country; “Resistance Economy, as exogenous as it is, should interact with the outside world; in petrochemical sector, we exported different products worth of $10bn and predict a modest rise to this figure by March 2017,” he told the opening ceremony, adding that Resistance Economy by no means should seek to set restrictions on Iran’s economy; “interaction with world is a necessity for Iran’s economy to absorb foreign investments which otherwise will find other stable countries as destination,” he asserted.
Jahangiri demanded transparency in setting price of the raw material which would provide higher certainty for investors to come to Iran; “projects amounting to about $75bn in worth are under different stages of implementation, which will give Iran the first place in exporting petrochemical products to the world,” he concluded.
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