Tehran, Iran, Oct. 17
By Mehdi Sepahvand – Trend:
The Iranian government has been giving special attention to the development of rural areas over the past couple of years. Unprecedentedly large financial aids provided in the meantime raise the question why this policy has been adopted.
Last year, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered the allocation of $500 million to the development of rural areas in the remote Sistan and Baluchestan Province.
In a televised interview Oct. 16, Vice-President for Rural Development Abolfazl Razavi said 110 trillion rials ($3.2 billion, 1 USD at 34,286 rials) is to go to creation of jobs in rural areas.
One of the major concerns behind such regard for rural areas is territorial security. The eastern province of Sistan and Baluchestan has been one of the key areas for terrorist groups to venture into the Iranian territory. Other remote areas such as Kurdistan and Kermanshah provinces in western Iran have had similar situations.
“A low level of development, low income, and lack of economic opportunities create enough ground for terrorist groups and drug smuggling networks,” Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told a conference last year, explaining the necessity of the economic development of rural areas.
Razavi said the financial aid to rural job development will come in the form of low-interest loans (6 to 8 percent) from the National Development Fund and some banks.
Another concern for the government to tend to rural development is to reduce economic vulnerability. Khamenei has been urging the government to adopt a series of policies he calls “resistance economy”. The aim is to minimize the country’s economic dependability on foreign resources. Iran has a long history of tough international embargos. Following Khamenei’s orders, President Hassan Rouhani created a special task force, called “Resistance Economy Staff”, headed by his deputy Es’haq Jahangiri.
“We intend to invest in rural areas in order to turn them into hubs of production and employment,” Razavi said.
According to Razavi, almost the entire of Iran’s wheat is produced by villagers. Iran used to import the strategic commodity until it managed to attain self-sufficiency in the first Rouhani administration (2013-17).
Iran, whose economy is heavily oil-driven, suffered greatly after oil prices plunged from around $80 to $40 per barrel in 2015. Upon that occasion, the government saw it more urgent than before to reduce its dependability on oil. It was about that very time that regard for rural development also emerged.