Mobile Phone Prices in Iran Quadruple in a Year as Lawmaker Demands Crackdown on Price Gouging

Reza Taghipour, a member of the Iranian parliament's Industries and Mines Committee, criticized a fourfold jump in mobile phone prices over the past year and called for immediate intervention by Iran's Tazirat (price enforcement) organization. According to Ecoiran, citing the parliament's Khaneh Mellat news agency, Taghipour said comparing phone prices in Iran with prices abroad shows sellers are calculating costs based on an implied dollar rate of more than 400,000 tomans, far above the actual free market rate. He blamed poor tracking of warehouse and import inventory data for enabling hoarding and price gouging in the mobile phone market, and called for heavy taxes on excessive markups and stronger enforcement action.