TEHRAN — Economic anxieties caused in part by the West's financial crisis have escalated tensions between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government and Iran's merchants as the country's economic lifeblood, oil, headed below $80 a barrel for the first time in more than a year.
On Sunday, rug and fabric dealers in at least two cities joined an unprecedented week-long strike led by jewelers in most major business centers to protest the imposition of a 3% value-added tax and demands for more transparent accounting practices by retailers.
Merchants in the traditional marketplaces of Tehran and Tabriz shuttered their businesses Sunday even though the government has agreed to delay imposition of the tax on many retail and wholesale transactions for two months.
Whole sections of downtown Tehran's massive and labyrinthine Grand Bazaar were closed Sunday, the second day of the Iranian workweek, people said. Though the most powerful wholesalers were believed to be leading the strikes, smaller shopkeepers also took part. Protesters angry over the tax smashed a branch of the state-owned Bank Saderat, according to the Borna news agency, which is close to the government.
The central bank also demanded Sunday that Iranian merchants and other businessmen with outstanding loans catch up on their payments. The move appeared to be a sign that the government is hoping to make up for the sudden drop in oil prices and the anticipation of prolonged worldwide economic malaise.
"All bad debtors to the banks are warned to pay back their installments in arrears," Mahmoud Bahmani, the newly appointed central bank governor, said in an interview broadcast on state radio. "If there's more delay, they will be fined and will have to pay the fine in addition to their debts."
This month, Iranian cleric Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati called the meltdown of capital markets in the West "divine punishment."
But economists predicted Iran also would suffer badly from any slowdown because of its dependence on oil sales. In recent days, the price of oil has fallen below $100 a barrel, a threshold Iranian officials had called unacceptable.
Tax revenue makes up only about a fifth of the Iranian government's budget, a weakness that authorities in Tehran have vowed to address by clamping down on opaque accounting procedures. Independent economists have lauded the new rules as a necessary step to modernize the country's archaic economy.
