Iran asks IMF for $5bn to fight coronavirus as cases reach 10,000

[yaesu]

Source: Financial Times

Iran said it has asked the IMF for $5bn of emergency funding to help it fight the social and economic impact of coronavirus, leaving the multilateral lender to take a decision on whether to lend to the Islamic republic that is currently subject to sweeping US sanctions.

Last week the IMF said it had allocated $50bn for countries struggling with the outbreak and Iran is one of the countries hardest hit. So far 429 people have died and more than 10,000 have tested positive in the country.

Abdolnaser Hemmati, Iran’s central bank governor, said in a statement on Thursday that he had written to Kristalina Georgieva, the IMF managing director on March 6 to request support from the emergency fund.

“Considering the widespread prevalence of coronavirus in our country and the necessity to forcefully continue preventive measures and medical treatment and to battle against its economic consequences, we demand to use $5bn from the fast financing facilities, given the size of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s quota in the fund,” he said.


Read more: https://www.ft.com/content/db67f794-645d-11ea-a6cd-df28cc3c6a68

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Things must be extremely bad in Iran because this is the first time Iran asked for any financial aid since the 1970's revolution.

[Leghorn21]

1. Holy cow, we knew it was going to be bad there, but to see "10,000" in writing is

chilling

[yaesu]

2. earlier was news of mass graves being dug spotted with satellites, and they have never asked

for money since the 70's revolution so you know its got to be bad there.

[tblue37]

3. Image from space:

Last edited Thu Mar 12, 2020, 08:20 PM - Edit history (1)

Link to tweet

[rickyhall]

4. I hold dump partially responsible for sanctions.

[yaesu]

6. I do too and his tricky dick republicans. nt

[cstanleytech]

8. Trump is responsible for alot of things but I don't find him at fault for this.

[rickyhall]

11. Iran hasn't the money to fight the emergency because the sanctions deprive them of it.

Sanctions are meant to hurt the leaders, but usually hurt the people.

[cstanleytech]

12. What got the ball rolling and led to sanctions though was Iran trying to develop a nuke.

Foolish of them really as nukes are outdated as far as a show of power when you have something like a large oil reserve that you can sell to earn $$$ and use that to influence other countries.

[rickyhall]

13. That's the story all right.

[cstanleytech]

14. Its the truth not the story. Now were they really trying when Trump came into office? I doubt it.

After all they had little to gain at that point but the point still remains that at one time they were trying.

[rickyhall]

16. Weapons of Mass Destruction.

[bucolic_frolic]

5. We are now where they were 4 weeks ago

This is the consequence of no testing

[yaesu]

7. and on another front, Italy, which has seen a thousand deaths so far, has more doctors and

hospitals per capita than the US and their system is breaking down badly.

[Midnight Writer]

9. Perhaps Iran could divert money going to foreign adventures.

[yaesu]

10. We may need to do the same. nt

[cstanleytech]

15. We dont even need to divert any going overseas we could divert some of the hundreds of billions

we are overspending on our military alone to both deal with this virus and rebuild our infrastructure if we cut off the money going to the corporations relying on the military gravy train.