Iranian president warns suppliers against overpricing or hoarding goods
- Last updated: January 8, 2026 | 21:10 ..
Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian warned domestic suppliers against hoarding or overpricing goods, state media reported on Thursday, as Tehran rolls out high-stakes subsidy reforms during nationwide protests against economic hardship.
"People should not feel any shortage in terms of goods' supply and distribution," Masoud Pezeshkian said, calling upon his government to ensure adequate supply of goods and monitoring of prices across the country.
Iran's subsidy reform is meant to favour consumers over importers by removing preferential currency exchange rates that allowed importers to access foreign currency at rates cheaper than those available to ordinary Iranians.
According to the policy, Iranians will be given about $7 a month to purchase basic goods in select grocery stores. The price of some basic goods such as cooking oil or eggs has significantly increased since the policy was announced.
Protests in Iran sparked by economic woes have now gone nationwide in the Islamic Republic, activists said on Thursday, signalling both their staying power and intensity as they challenge the country's theocracy.
Wednesday saw the most-intense day of demonstrations, reaching rural towns and major cities in every province though still localised enough for daily life to continue in Tehran, Iran's capital, and elsewhere. So far, violence around the demonstrations has killed at least 38 people while more than 2,200 others have been detained, said the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency.
On Wednesday, at least 37 protests took place across the country, activists said. They included Shiraz, where online videos purported to show an anti-riot truck using a water cannon to target demonstrators. The state-run IRNA news agency, which has largely been silent about the demonstrations, reported on a mass demonstration in Bojnourd, as well as demonstrations in Kerman and Kermanshah.
Iranian officials have offered no acknowledgment of the scale of the protests. However, there has been reporting regarding security officials being hurt or killed.
The judiciary's Mizan news agency report a police colonel suffered fatal stab wounds in a town outside of Tehran, while the semiofficial Fars news agency said gunmen killed two security force members and wounded 30 others in a shooting in the city of Lordegan in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province.
Demonstrations continued Thursday, with merchants closing their shops in Iran's Kurdistan province.
It remains unclear why Iranian officials have yet to crack down harder on the demonstrators. US President Donald Trump's warned last week that if Tehran "violently kills peaceful protesters," America "will come to their rescue."
Trump's comments drew a new rebuke from Iran's Foreign Ministry. "Recalling the long history of criminal interventions by successive US administrations in Iran's internal affairs, the Foreign Ministry considers claims of concern for the great Iranian nation to be hypocritical, aimed at deceiving public opinion and covering up the numerous crimes committed against Iranians," it said.
Agencies