Iran's Poverty Levels in Current Economy

Running head: IRAN`S POVERTY LEVELS IN CURRENT ECONOMY
Iran`s Poverty Levels in Current Economy
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Iran`s Poverty Levels in Current Economy
Iran is a Middle Eastern resource and labor rich country and a central focus of the American national security policy. The American government is enforcing and sponsoring uranium enrichment activities in this county purposely for nuclear weapons development. Such aspects have caused the economy of Iran to be strong and vulnerable and have dynamic structures. From 2000, the country has enjoyed a broad based economic growth that was reflected down the decade (Ilias, 2009). However, despite this broad based economic growth, any achievement of a strong economic performance has been hindered by low levels of foreign investment and high levels of unemployment and inflation. Economic theorists have associated the worsening of unemployment, poverty and inflation rates to the monetary and fiscal policies of president Ahmadinejad (Ilias, 2009).
In the recent years, the country has faced strong economic sanctions from the U.S and the United Nations due to the country`s uranium enrichment program and its support of terrorist activities (Aref, 2011). These sanctions have been associated with the inability of the country to realize any considerable economic growth especially in the last five years. Moreover, poor economic indicators like poverty, unemployment and inflation have increased significantly in the last five years. Such a poor economic situation has been associated with the isolation of the nation from the international trade and financial market (Ilias, 2009).
The country boasts of being the third largest petroleum reserve in the world after Saudi Arabia and Canada and being the second largest gas reserve following Russia. Iran has the second largest economic of all the nations in North Africa and Middle East after Saudi Arabia (Aref, 2011). Despite such strong economic factors the nation faces several economic challenges like the high dependence on oil exports. Oil exports are used by the Iranian government to provide revenue for government spending. Since oil prices fluctuate, the revenue stream of the nation fluctuates with prices. Secondly the nation dependence on gasoline imports in order to meet its domestic energy needs (Ilias, 2009). The fluctuation of prices for these items implies that the economy is not stable enough to support important growth factors like employment. Moreover, the nation is reported to have gross economic mismanagement practices that prevent the equal distribution of resources. Coupled with economic sanctions from America and the UN, the nation is not able to utilize its resources to reduce economic problems IMF (2008). Therefore, the country is facing seri...