Iran urges reforms in world economy

The Islamic Republic of Iran laid forward a set of proposals for an overhaul of the world economic system to curb further financial crises and eliminate monopolies on the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Addressing the United Nations General Assembly High-Level Thematic Debate on the State of the World Economy and Finance in 2012 in New York on Thursday, Iran's Minister of Economic Affairs and Finance Shamseddin Hosseini presented six proposals outlining Tehran's bid for reforms in the global economic policies. The Iranian minister underscored the need for a revision of economic mechanisms, including those in the monetary and financial sectors and replacing them with a legitimate Islamic fiscal system. “We should think of decentralization and balancing benefits in the global economy,” Hosseini pointed out. He further called on the world monetary and financial institutions to shift their supervisory responsibility from the developing countries to the industrial economies. Hosseini also stated that an overhaul should take place in major financial management institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF, urging an end to the monopoly on the two bodies’ management. The Iranian official warned against the political dominance over monetary institutions, saying such institutes’ professional independence should be safeguarded and advanced. “The application of monetary-financial instruments and institutions as a means to exert political pressure will bear no results other than destruction and tension in the global economy and a fall in growth,” he stated. “Economic and financial sanctions are among the clear examples of such policies that need to be put aside,” Hosseini pointed out.