During the last week, the two top officials, i.e. the Leader and the president, gave new hopes to the private sector through their messages.
Ayatollah Khamenei, in a meeting with the cabinet, asked the government to delegate some works to the private sector and said: “To beat recession, parts of the current plans must be delegated to the private sector.”
Also, President Hassan Rouhani, in a meeting with journalists, invited national entrepreneurs to increase their activities and promised that in the post-sanctions period, better ground for economic activities will be prepared with a particular emphasis on the private sector.
Both messages describe a more important role for the private sector, however, a question that arises is: How the government can help the private sector play a central role in our economy?
To answer the question, let us refer to two more decrees of the Leader. The first part of Article 44 of the Constitution clearly stipulates that the government policies must lead to empowerment of the private sector and in its third part, it emphasizes on transferences. The previous government due to its negative approach to the private sector did not consider the first part, whereas it made a good preparation for realization of the third part. Therefore during the pervious government, the transfer of authorities was done in a way that failed to empower the private sector, but gave birth to many new quasi-public companies.
In order to reach the post-sanctions goals, wean the economy off oil revenues, realize “resistance economy”, increase production and whatever the goals might be, we certainly need an empowered private sector. However back to the president’s speech, since at the moment the private sector is not as powerful as it is supposed to be, the probability that these quasi-public companies become the main winners in post-sanctions era, as they were during the sanctions, is getting higher and higher. Therefore we expect the policymakers to build a direct connection between what the president has promised and the status quo of the private sector.
Secondly, the private sector seriously requires moving in the “resistance economy” path. On the other hand, “resistance economy” policies contain many articles regarding developing an export-oriented economy, which obviously asks for the government’s determination at its highest levels to follow the export-oriented “resistance economy” policies. Hence it seems that after a decade of economic restrictions and decrease in international influence of Iran, now a valuable consensus has been created in every level of government to support the private sector. But to help this sector to make economic success and achieve prosperity, this consensus must also include experts, economic activists, entrepreneurs, artisans and traders. In short it has to turn to a national and public demand to reach such a goal. At the same time, the government needs to take serious steps to improve the business atmosphere, increase competition and prepare for joining the international markets.
Indeed besides such domestic consensus that follows the export-oriented economic policies, a package regarding removing the sanctions as well as economic and non-economic obstacles must be prepared. At the end, it should be noted that still a complete link between the picture described by President Rouhani and the prerequisite policies to turn the private sector into a leading force for the economy, is missing.