Iran’s propsed budget for 2022/23 (1401)
This year’s proposed budget takes more significance than budgets in pervious years because it is the first by the new “principlist” (the Persian adjectives are osoulgara or enghelabi) government of President Ebrahim Raisi. It is also significant because the government is engaged in the JCPOA talks in Vienna. It is natural to read it both for signs of policies to expect from a government that has promised a radical shift in foreign and economic policy, and as it relates to the government’s negotiating position in Vienna.
(more…)The budget for 2020/2021 has become law
The budget for the new Iranian year 1399, which started on March 20, was presented to the parliament back in November but fell victim to the devastating coronavirus crisis and the election of the new, conservative parliament. I was not inclined to invest the time to update this blog on the proposed budget because they seemed subject to radical modifications. However, the deliberations of the parliament were cut short on orders from Iran’s Supreme Leader, and a slightly modified budget was submitted to the Guardian Council, which approved it last week. So now is a good time to update my budget tables. I did not have the numbers below when I wrote this piece for ForeignAffairs.com a week ago. I could not find all the details (like the total revenue from taxes) in the final budget that the parliament sent back to the government. (more…)
Tyranny of numbers 
3 comments