Can Iran’s new President Raisi fix a deeply troubled economy?

Iran’s economy has been crippled by US sanctions and decades-long structural issues.

Tehran, Iran – Ebrahim Raisi, who will be sworn in on Thursday as Iran’s eighth president, inherits a troubled economy whose fate has been intertwined with political upheavals. The “revolutionary” government he’s promised to form has a Herculean task ahead to fix an economy that suffers from a toxic mix of United States sanctions, the COVID-19 pandemic, and structural issues that have taken hold after decades of mismanagement. One inescapable economic hardship that increasingly makes everyday life more difficult for Iranians is inflation, which many Iranian economists and analysts expect to remain above 40 percent at least until later this year.