Months after Iran private sector announced its objection to the way the World Bank is examining the country’s efforts to carry out economic reforms, an Iranian government agency has urged the group to refrain from politicized moves in evaluating the country’s business situation.
Iran’s Organization for Investment & Economic and Technical Assistance (OIETAI) has written to the World Bank Group demanding the global financial body to refrain from politicized handling of Iran’s case once it is examined for the Group’s annual Doing Business reports.
Iran’s minister of finance Farhad Dejpassand said on Thursday that the government would continue to press the World Bank to consider Iran’s improved status as a business-friendly nation.
Dejpassand said the OIETAI had sent an official request to the World Bank demanding the global body to stop using politicized approaches in handling Iran’s business climate case.
“Our OIETAI chief has written a letter to the World Bank president in which he has warned that they should refrain from mixing professional and technical issues with political affairs,” he said.
Dejpassand further highlighted the fact that Iran has managed to pass 8 out of 11 standards set by the World Bank to be able to ascend in its global ranking.
Iranian authorities have repeatedly said they are unhappy with the country’s current position in the World Bank’s doing business reports despite the fact that it has jumped 25 places in the ranking in the past eight years to stand at 127.
The minister said Iran’s private-sector businesses and non-governmental organizations have approved the reforms carried out by the government to improve the economic and business situation in the country.
“This is a very low ranking … unfortunately this ranking is partly influenced by political issues,” said Dejpassand in an interview with IRIB Radio.
Iran and many other countries have been critical of the way the World Bank compiles its annual Doing Business reports as they have negatively affected efforts to boost foreign investment in those countries.
Under growing criticism, the World Bank decided to stop issuing the reports in August 2020 to examine alleged irregularities in data collection.
Iran private sector critical of World Bank
The letter from the Iranian government body comes months after the country’s private sector criticized the World Bank for its way of examining the country’s efforts to carry out economic reforms.
Iran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture (ICCIMA), which is the main private sector advocacy group in Iran, said in October 2020 that the World Bank had accepted only one item out of eight reform measures verified by the chamber and its local branches.
The headquarters of Iran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture (ICCIMA) in Tehran
According to a press release by the ICCIMA, the World Bank officials attended a recent video conference in which private sector representatives from across Iran had verified a series of reforms carried out by the Iranian government in recent years.
It said, however, that the Washington-based group had only approved reforms carried out on one economic indicator from a total of eight verified by the chamber and its regional branches.
“The World Bank accepted to include one item out of eight reform measures in its 2021 Doing Business report and the rest were either rejected or were accepted to be included in reports that would be prepared in the upcoming two years,” said the ICCIMA.