New Limits on Travel Abroad

Adnkronos International:

Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has issued a circular warning all ministers and state bodies that "no official may go abroad, on a mission or for personal reasons, without prior authorisation and without coordinating with the foreign ministry". In the circular, signed by the deputy president Parwiz Davoodi, no reason is given for the decision. "The aim is to avoid misunderstandings," a presidential source told the Iranian news agency Fars. READ MORE

Since the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last July, there has been an increasing flow of financial and human capital to neighbouring countries and to Europe and Canada and shares on the Tehran exchanges have plumetted, losing up to sixty per cent of their value.

In the last three months, an estimated one billion dollars of Iranian capital has been invested in nearby Dubai alone. Some 100 million dollars has been invested in neighbouring Iraqi Kurdistan.

During his electoral campaign, Ahmadinejad described investments in stocks and shares as "a game of chance, contrary to Islamic principles". The subsequent denials by the aides of the new president have done nothing to calm the waters and avoid an investor crisis of confidence.

The news that a 27-year-old economics graduate was to be the new director of the Tehran stock exchange has provoked further consternation among Iranian investors.

Under a presidential decree in November, the directors of the country's most important banks were dismissed. "If the banks do not work to carry out the economic policies of the government, or worse still work against them, they will be closed down," the new economy minister Davoud Danesh Jaafari warned.

The banking appointment which has created the greatest furore in financial circles is that of Abdolhamid Ansari, a former commander of the Revolutionary Guard, to head the Melli Bank, Iran's central bank.