Held at Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) on Saturday, the first round of the debates between candidates for the Iran 2021 Presidential Election was focused on ‘economic’ issues.
The main focus of the candidates was on the issue of liquidity and tax evasion, economic challenges, and providing solutions to solve them.
One of the candidates believed that the economic crisis in Iran results from the issue that Iran has not joined the Financial Action Task Force (on Money Laundering) which is known as FATF.
This is while the issue of FATF is seriously questioned by other candidates as well as economic analysts.
Most of the candidates believed that the country can be governed by using internal and indigenous capabilities, without relying on foreigners.
Although Iran accepted 39 recommendations of the FATF, nothing happened in favor of the economy the country, said Saeed Jalili one of the candidates.
Despite the fuss of FATF supporters, adding Iran’s name on the FATF blacklist not only has not posed a serious risk to the country’s banking relations, but also Iran's transaction costs have been declining, statistics of the past year show.
The experience of the years 2007 to 2012 is another confirmation of this. During these years Iran had been on the FATF blacklist, but no changes were witnessed in the economy of Iran.
The seven candidates for Iran 2021 Presidential Election include as follows: 1- Alireza Zakani, 2- Mohsen Rezaei Mir-Ghaed, 3- Seyyed Ebrahim Raeisi, 4- Saeed Jalili, 5- Abdolnaser Hemmati, 6- Mohsen Mehralizadeh, and 7- Seyyed Amir-Hossein Ghazizadeh Hashemi.
Iran 2021 Presidential Election will be held on June 18.
RHM/MNA