Where pineapples are $15

Already Plagued by Inflation, Iran Is Bracing for Worse

By THOMAS ERDBRINK, NYT

TEHRAN — Bedeviled by government mismanagement of the economy and international sanctions over its nuclear program, Iran is in the grip of spiraling inflation. Just ask Ali, a fruit vendor in the capital whose business has been slow for months.

People hurried by his lavish displays of red grapes, dark blue figs and ginger last week, with few stopping to make a purchase. “Who in Iran can afford to buy a pineapple costing $15?” he asked. “Nobody.”

But Ali is not complaining, because he is making a killing in his other line of work: currency speculation. “At least the dollars I bought are making a profit for me,” he said.

The imposition on Sunday of new international measures aimed at cutting Iran’s oil exports, its main source of income, threatens to make the distortion in the economy even worse. With the local currency, the rial, having lost 50 percent of its value in the last year against other currencies, consumer prices here are rising fast — officially by 25 percent annually, but even more than that, economists say.

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