Iranian meat and cooking�oil prices�surged after the government stopped providing foreign currencies at a preferential�exchange rate�to importers of essential goods, the Tehran-based�Shargh�newspaper and other local media reported.
Meat prices have increased 60 percent, while cooking oil prices climbed 35 percent,�Ahmad Tavakoli, a lower house member of parliament said in the chamber today, according to the Mehr news agency.

Prices for other staple goods are also set to increase and inflation will quicken, Hamid Hosseini, a member of Iran�s Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Mines, wrote in Shargh today.

Iran�s government has stopped allocating U.S. dollars at the official rate of 12,260 rials to importers of staple goods, including meat, chicken, cooking oil, sugar and rice, Shargh said. Importers must now pay 25,000 rials per dollar, the report said.

The new rate also applies to imports of medicine, the Tehran-based�Jomhouri Eslami�newspaper said.

By Bloomberg

 

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