The Leader, who met President Seyyed Ebrahim Raeisi and members of his cabinet in Tehran on the occasion of the Government Week (August 24-30), pointed to the administration’s important economic measures and added increase in petrochemical output, implementation of valuable oil and gas projects, and revitalization of closed and semi-closed workshops are among admirable actions of the government.

Ayatollah Khamenei also referred to economic growth, particularly in the industrial sector, increase in investment, reduction of liquidity, drop in unemployment rate, reduction of Gini coefficient, and rise in exports as other praiseworthy measures of the government.

He also appreciated the government’s good performance in other areas, including “infrastructure plans”, “macroeconomic indicators”, and “foreign policy”, regretting that the administration’s basic activities are being overshadowed by livelihood problems such as the high costs of housing and rent.

The Leader urged the officials to pay full attention to reducing undesirable double-digit inflation, narrowing social gap, stabilizing market and exchange rate, and boosting production.

Ayatollah Khamenei also expressed his satisfaction with the government’s foreign policy, including expansion of relations with neighbors, and said, “We must not be in conflict with any of neighbors, and if there is a conflict, it must be turned into cooperation.”

He described Iran’s membership in two international treaties – the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and a group of six nations comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS) – as very important since they show the country enjoys a position that the founders of international treaties are eager to establish and sometimes insist on establishing relations with Iran.

Sanctions target people’s livelihood

The main aim of the sanctions imposed on Iran is to take people’s livelihood hostage, warned the Leader, urging the officials to neutralize the bans in parallel with efforts and negotiations to terminate them.

He referred to reduction of inflation as the main factor for neutralizing the sanctions and added statistics released by the government show that inflation has decreased but it is not sufficient as the existence of double-digit inflation for consecutive years is not favorable and must be reduced as much as possible.

Ayatollah Khamenei noted that implementing numerous semifinished projects, redressing banks’ imbalance, and confronting brokerage help reduce inflation rapidly.

Reactionary view

Some political figures are of the opinion that interaction with the world is limited to warm and close relations with a few Western countries, said the Leader, adding, "This view is wrong, reactionary, and dates back to 100 years ago, when a few European states controlled the world. However, that old and reactionary view must be put aside today and it must be realized that relations with the world mean relations with Africa, South America, and Asia, which house enormous human and natural resources. In the meantime, the criterion for international relations is national interests and honor, and there must be no room for domination and submission in relations."