Central Bank Announces Financial Resources for Pharmaceutical Companies Following Medicalian's Order

After months of delay by the Central Bank in providing currency for medicine, the head of the Central Bank announced the allocation of liquidity and currency to pharmaceutical units following an order from the President of the Fourteenth Government. Mohammad Reza Farzin, the head of the Central Bank, announced on Tuesday, August 21, that in addition to a 50 trillion tomans loan to pharmaceutical companies, medical equipment, and baby formula, the Central Bank will allocate up to 200 million euros for the registration of drug and medical equipment orders. Following increased criticism of the critical situation of medicines, Mohammad Jafar Qaimpanah, the Executive Deputy of the President and head of the Presidential Institution, announced on Saturday that Masoud Pezeshkian had instructed the head of the Central Bank to resolve the liquidity issue for supplying raw materials to pharmaceutical factories and importing medicines. One day after this announcement, Mr. Farzin stated in a coordination meeting with officials from the Food and Drug Organization of the Ministry of Health, along with representatives from the pharmaceutical sector, that the Central Bank has allocated financial facilities to solve the liquidity and currency issues for drug imports. At the same time, the Central Bank published a report claiming that from the beginning of this year until August 17, more than 1.2 billion dollars of currency at the rate of 28,500 tomans has been allocated for importing medicines, raw materials, and medical equipment. This comes as representatives from the Chamber of Commerce and pharmaceutical companies have severely accused the Central Bank and the government of not allocating currency for importing essential goods, especially medicines, in recent months. Following a record 16 billion dollar deficit in Iran's non-oil trade balance last year, the thirteenth government has imposed stricter controls on currency allocation for imports, managing to reduce imports by one billion dollars in the first four months of this year compared to the same period last year, bringing it down to 18.5 billion dollars. Masoud Pezeshkian himself had reported a debt of '60 trillion tomans' owed by the government to pharmaceutical companies back in May when he was still a member of the Health and Treatment Commission of the Islamic Consultative Assembly. According to him, the thirteenth government was supposed to spend 10% of the net targeting for patients with difficult-to-treat diseases, but it has not done so. He also accused some members of parliament of preventing the Health Commission from submitting its report on government violations in the health sector to the judiciary. A month after Mr. Pezeshkian's statements, Mohammad Ali Bandpay, a member of the Health and Treatment Commission's board, warned that medicines are turning into a 'crisis' and announced that the number of rare medicines has reached over 200 items.