TEHRAN, Sept 25: Iran’s oil-dependent economy was showing the strain of punishing Western sanctions on Tuesday, on the eve of a speech by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the UN General Assembly in New York.

The Iranian currency dived around four per cent close to an all-time low against the dollar, while thousands of workers publicly complained of unpaid wages, importers struggled to pay for goods, inflation climbed and travel agencies bemoaned a rapidly shrinking pool of travellers able to afford to go abroad.

Government initiatives to maintain the value of the rial and the volume of oil exports have failed, with both halved from their levels of a year ago.

Iran’s leaders, though, are defiant in the face of the Western pressure, vowing to never roll back its nuclear programme as demanded by the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany.

Ahmadinejad was expected to stress that defiance in a speech to the annual General Assembly on Wednesday.

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has already ordered Iran to adopt an “economy of resistance,” while officials have told national media to avoid reporting on the “bleak” domestic situation and instead emphasise positive economic stories.Evidence of the difficulties still surfaced, though, driven by an EU embargo on Iranian oil and US sanctions on financial transactions involving Iran’s central bank.

A prominent MP, Mohammad Reza Bahonar, was quoted at the weekend by the ISNA news agency as saying oil exports in June-July had dropped to “around 800,000 barrels per day” – a low not seen in more than two decades, and less than half the 2.3 million barrels per day of a year ago.

Bahonar’s oil export figures roughly tallied with those given by OPEC and the International Energy Agency.

But Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi was quoted by ISNA saying that overall oil production this year “will be the same as last year.” While crude exports were expected to rebound a little in September as South Korea resumed buying some Iranian oil, they were expected to continue well below recent historic levels.

Ahmadinejad early this month also admitted Iran faced “problems” selling its oil, which accounts for nearly half of budget revenues. But he insisted his country would manage. Both he and Khamenei have urged lesser economic dependence on oil sales.—AFP