State newspaper says currency crisis following sanctions against banks has led to struggle to find milk for babies with allergies

Sanctions are said to have caused a serious shortage of powdered milk for children with allergies in Iran. If you are in Iran and your child needs powdered milk because of an allergy, then you are in serious trouble. As sanctions take their toll on imports, a serious shortage of the product in the Iranian market is putting the lives of many babies at risk.  The economic measures against the Islamic republic might be targeting the country's nuclear programme but they have already had a great impact on the lives of ordinary people, especially with their effects on Iranian pharmacies.

In recent weeks, Iranians have complained about the soaring price of the baby milk, which has nearly doubled from some 60,000 rials to almost 120,000 rials a tin.  Domestically-made baby milk is reported to be abundant in the market while diet milk, or that suitable for children with allergies, which are imported from outside, are scarce.

The government has resorted to rationing, according to the website of the nation-wide state newspaper Hamshahri, which blamed the shortage on the crisis raging over the country's currency. The rial was sent into a tailspin last month, dropping to all-time lows.  Punitive measures against Iranian banks, which have cut them off from the outside world, and the trade sanctions have hindered the imports of many products that are not on the blacklist, such as foreign-made medicines. According to Hamshahri, Mohammad Kazem Pour-Kazemi, the deputy head of Iran's society of pharmacists, said: "Unfortunately the distribution of diet milk is in an undesirable situation ... Despite the increase in prices, people have problems with finding them."  Saeed Jamal-Vaghefi, another official with the society, said: "Like any other product affected by the currency market, baby milk is scarce."   Speaking to the BBC's Persian service, an Iranian mother said that her daughter was taken to hospital because she couldn't find baby milk. She said: "My daughter had diarrhoea and we had to find a special milk. We looked for it in all pharmacies but they had run out of it."

Another mother told the BBC: "Baby milk is vital for my child. The officials are saying that it doesn't exist in the market any more, pharmacies say they don't have it. What should I do when my child is crying out of hunger?"

In mid-October, a leading Iranian medical charity warned that western sanctions were hitting the imports of medicines and hospital equipment, putting millions of lives at risk. Patients suffering from diseases such as haemophilia, multiple sclerosis and cancer are believed to be affected.

Earlier this month, the New York Times published a detailed report on how sanctions were taking an unexpected toll on medical imports, including medicines such as Herceptin which is made in the US. Among the other medicines said to be scarce in Iranian pharmacies these days is the tetanus vaccine.

Der iranische Zoll hat detaillierte Außenhandelszahlen für die ersten sieben Monate des laufen­den Jahres veröffenticht.  70% seiner Waren bezog Iran im Berichtzeitraum aus Asien und 28% aus Europa.  Die Nichtöl­liefe­run­gen gingen zu 93% in asiatische Länder und 4% nach Europa.

Nach den jetzt veröffentlichten Zahlen importierte Iran von März bis Oktober Waren im Wert von 31.712 Mio. USD.  Wichtigstes Lieferland waren die Vereinigten Arabischen Emirate mit Lieferungen in Höhe von 6.382 Mio. USD, gefolgt von China (4.523 Mio. USD), der Türkei (2.986 Mio. USD) Süd-Korea (2.780 Mio. USD), der Schweiz (1.904 Mio. USD) und Deutschland (1.563 Mio. USD). 

Unterschiedliche Berechnungen gibt es bei den Nichtöl-Exporten des Iran.  Die Zahlen sind abhängig davon, welche Produkte in die Berechnungen aufgenommen werden. Auf der Internet­seite des iranischen Zolls werden die Nichtöl-Produkte (ohne Serviceleistungen, aber mit Flüssiggas und Petrochemie-Exporten) mit 19.021 Mio. USD angegeben.  Wichtigstes Abnehmerland der Nichtöl-Produkte ist der Irak mit Käufen in Höhe von 3.556 Mio. USD, gefolgt von den VAE (2.985 Mio. USD), China (2.962 Mio. USD), Afghanistan (1.617 Mio. USD und Indien (1.521 Mio. USD). 

TEHRAN, Nov. 7 (MNA) - Iranian Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi has lifted a ban on the export of petrochemicals and issued an order detailing new regulations for petrochemical exports, ISNA cited Deputy Oil Minister Abdolhossein Bayat as saying on Tuesday.  Previously, IRNA quoted Iranian Organization for Supporting Consumers and Producers announced that the administration has banned the export of petrochemical products, inclu­ding polymers, as a measure to "support national production".

The list, which included polyethylene, polypropylene, polyvinyl chloride and PET, was part of the 50 industrial and agricultural products restricted for export sales.  The U.S. and Europe recently stepped up sanctions against Iran in an attempt to curb its nuclear program. The West accuses the Islamic Republic of trying to build nuclear weapons, but Tehran says generating electricity is the sole aim of its nuclear program.  On September 29, Bayat said Iran exported roughly $6 billion worth of petrochemical exports in the first six months of the current Iranian calendar year, which began on March 20.  Bayat added that the figure is projected to exceed $15 billion by the end of the Iranian calendar year, which ends on March 20, 2013.  Last year, Iran exported 16.2 million tons of petrochemical products to 60 countries around the world.  Europe and China were the main recipients of Iran's petrochemical exports, followed by Southeast Asia, the Middle East, the Subcontinent, Africa and Latin America.

TEHRAN — Sitting on one of the many crowded benches in the waiting room of the International Red Crescent’s pharmacy in central Tehran, Ali, 26, was working his phone. After nearly six weeks of chasing down batches of Herceptin, an American-made cancer medicine, Ali, an engineer, was wearing out his welcome with friends and relatives in other Iranian cities, who had done all they could to rustle up the increasingly elusive drug. …  …   …   http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/03/world/middleeast/iran-sanctions-take-toll-on-medical-imports.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0