The Research Centre of the Iranian regime’s parliament has announced that more than $59 billion of capital has fled Iran in the last two years, a number that has been predicted to rise in 2018 following the U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal.
According to an article published on 28th May by a government-owned agency known as ‘khabar online’, the Research Centre of the Parliament has labelled this figure as “significant” compared to Iran’s current economy.
Just last year, $30.2 billion of “capital”, equivalent to 83% of Iran’s annual earning from its non-gas exports, fled Iran. In 2016, another $20.2 billion went out.
According to experts, the most important causes for such notable flights are: “political and economic instability”, “general policy shortcomings in the protection of investments”, “challenging economic activities”, “high risks of investment”, and “inclination to live abroad”.
The mentioned outflows apparently occur with the intention of purchasing assets overseas (e.g., houses; often in Britain, Canada, and Turkey), as well as investing in foreign banks.
In another report, the research centre made a statement about Iran’s currency market and announced that given the massive flights of capital in the last two years, the country’s money supply has dropped by $16.3 billion.
Following the currency crisis in Iran, which has exacerbated since the protests of December last year, the regime’s Central Bank has limited the amount of money that travellers can carry overseas, to around €5000.
Nonetheless, experts say that because currency has now been replaced by gold, the planned outflows will still take place, but in the form of gold instead.