TEHRAN, Iran: Iran’s president said Saturday his country needs some $100 billion in foreign investment to achieve an annual target of 8 percent economic growth up from the current rate of 4 percent.
The remarks by Masoud Pezeshkian, who was elected in July, came in his first live televised interview by state TV.
Pezeshkian said Iran needs up to $250 billion to reach its goal but more than half is available from domestic resources. Experts say growth in GDP of 8 percent would reduce double-digit inflation and unemployment rates.
Hundreds of entities and people in Iran — from the central bank and government officials to drone producers and money exchangers — are already under international sanctions, many of them accused of materially supporting Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and foreign militant groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis.
Pezeshkian in his interview complained about the sanctions and said his administration plans to reduce inflation, which is running at more than 40 percent annually, “if we solve our problems with neighbors and the world.” He did not elaborate.
Pezeshkian confirmed that his first visit abroad will be to neighboring Iraq and he would then fly to New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly meeting on Sept. 22-23. He said while he was in New York he would meet with Iranian expatriates to invite them to invest in Iran. Out of more than 8 million Iranian expatriates, some 1.5 million Iranian live in the United States.
Pezeshkian, who is viewed as a reformist, was sworn in last month and parliament approved his cabinet earlier in August, promising a softer tone both inside and outside the country. His predecessor, Ebrahim Raisi, a hard-line protege of Iran’s supreme leader who led the country as it enriched uranium near weapons-grade levels, died in a helicopter crash in May, along with seven other people.
Iran’s economy has struggled since 2018 after then-President Donald Trump pulled the US out of the deal to constrain Tehran’s nuclear program and imposed more sanctions. Pezeshkian said during his presidential campaign that he would try to revive the nuclear deal.
Iran’s president says his country needs more than $100 billion in foreign investment
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Iran’s president says his country needs more than $100 billion in foreign investment
- Pezeshkian said Iran needs up to $250 billion to reach its goal but more than half is available from domestic resources
Israel defense minister vows to stay in Gaza, establish outposts
- His remarks, reported across Israeli media, come as a fragile US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas holds in Gaza
JERUSALEM: Defense Minister Israel Katz on Tuesday vowed Israel will remain in Gaza and pledged to establish outposts in the north of the Palestinian territory, according to a video of a speech published by Israeli media.
His remarks, reported across Israeli media, come as a fragile US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas holds in Gaza.
Mediators are pressing for the implementation of the next phases of the truce, which would involve an Israeli withdrawal from the territory.
Speaking at an event in the Israeli settlement of Beit El in the occupied West Bank, Katz said: “We are deep inside Gaza, and we will never leave Gaza — there will be no such thing.”
“We are there to protect, to prevent what happened (from happening again),” he added, according to a video published by Israeli news site Ynet.
Katz also vowed to establish outposts in the north of Gaza in place of settlements that had been evacuated during Israel’s unilateral disengagement from the territory in 2005.
“When the time comes, God willing, we will establish in northern Gaza, Nahal outposts in place of the communities that were uprooted,” Katz said, referring to military-agricultural settlements set up by Israeli soldiers.
“We will do this in the right way and at the appropriate time.”
Katz’s remarks were slammed by former minister and chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot, who accused the government of “acting against the broad national consensus, during a critical period for Israel’s national security.”
“While the government votes with one hand in favor of the Trump plan, with the other hand it sells fables about isolated settlement nuclei in the (Gaza) Strip,” he wrote on X, referring to the Gaza peace plan brokered by US President Donald Trump.
The next phases of Trump’s plan would involve an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, the establishment of an interim authority to govern the territory in place of Hamas and the deployment of an international stabilization force.
It also envisages the demilitarization of Gaza, including the disarmament of Hamas, which the group has refused.
On Thursday, several Israelis entered the Gaza Strip in defiance of army orders and held a symbolic flag-raising ceremony to call for the reoccupation and resettlement of the Palestinian territory.
