Afsaneh, if you could indulge me on something...how much manufacturing and non-pertoleum activity goes on in Iran? It seems the few petro states that have succeeded long term have done so by diversifying their commerce. I understand your country is under trade sanctions with much of the West, but eventually that will change (Persian culture is not going anywhere) as things always do.
Oil is often as much a curse as it is a blessing, and I don't really know much about Iran, so I am curious about what other interests the country puts its investments.
Well, I can't give you numbers, but the biggest manufacturing industry here is the car industry. Their overpriced cars only can compete with Korean and Japanese cars with heavy custom fees on those cars. Anyway, fun part is, they've managed to establish car factories in some countries abroad or sell the cars they make here, obviously at a lower price than we could get.
We have pharmaceutical factories and home appliances producers as well. I remember during the war, everything was made right here, you couldn't find a single item made outside here in any store. But these stuff can in no way compete with most of what's made abroad. So when Ahmadinejad came to power, he let the military into commerce and they imported everything from abroad, and that's how many manufacturers here went bankrupt. Most notably the sugar industries were shut down, since they couldn't compete with the lower prices of what was imported. Now with the sanctions imposed, they neither can import much, nor the manufacturers inside are there anymore to pick up the slack.
The depth of corruption of Ahmadinejad and Pasdaran is more than I can explain here. Astronomical amounts of money is missing here or there. High ranks within insurance companies, banks, etc. have embezzled money. Even he, himself while the mayor of Tehran has embezzled money.
The revenue of oil sold during his presidency is as much as what was made before him combined, but instead of putting it into manufacturing, infrastructure and creating jobs, he started paying monthly subsidies so that people do what they want with it. The result was a 100% inflation rate.
