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where many consumers now prefer to shop online.
"Sales of clothing are down to almost zero compared to last year when the market was booming and Iranian production was stable. Unfortunately the coronavirus outbreak has dealt a fatal blow to clothing manufacturers," Shirazi said.
The latest severe decline of the Iranian rial (IRR) was yet to affect offered prices on clothing as an abundance of items was already sewn before it began, noted Shirazi. However, items produced after the new Persian year commenced on March 20 were seeing 30% to 40% price hikes due to the weaker rial driving up costs on imported raw materials, he added.
“As people are housebound, they have few or no requirements for new clothes and the industry now has a glut of items to move,” Shirazi concluded.
9.1.10​ Property sector news
Iranians hold on to top spot taken from Iraqia as top foreign buyers of Turkish property
Iran levies tax on speculators keeping homes empty
Iranians this year for the first time have overtaken Iraqis as the top foreign buyers of homes in Turkey, and have held on to the top spot for eight consecutive months, according to Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK) data.
In the year to October, Iranians bought 5,565 homes in Turkey, compared to Iraqis with 5,074.
US President Donald Trump’s heavy sanctions thrown at Tehran may have undermined bilateral trade between Iran and Turkey, but at the same time they have left many Iranians short of investment opportunities at home, and many of those Iranians have opted for Turkish property as one of the safer bets.
Iran usually posts a wide trade surplus with Turkey, but since Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal in May 2018 and imposed the sanctions, trade volumes have shrunk. Iran is on track to post a Turkey trade deficit this year for the first time since 2016, Turkish Ministry of Trade figures show. Total bilateral; trade declined 38% from 2016 to 2019.
Iran has commenced its long-awaited scheme to push thousands of apartments and homes kept empty by owners on to the market by imposing an “empty home tax”, YJC reported on September 22.
A barrage of SMS messages was reportedly sent out to hundreds of thousands of mobile numbers, thought to be those of owners, informing them of their tax liability.
More than 109,000 residential properties have been officially listed as vacant on the Iranian Tax Affairs Organisation’s website as part of the first phase of a plan to force owners to rent or sell the empty homes. Part of the reasoning of the government is that developers are sitting on brand new apartment blocks in the hope that the per square-metre price on unlived-in flats rises.
Mahmoud Mahmoudzadeh, Deputy Housing and Construction Minister of Roads and Urban Development, said more than 500,000 SMS messages were sent out to registered telephone numbers of those thought liable for the tax. "The information on vacant units will be provided to the Tax Affairs Organisation and this organisation will collect taxes through the available information," he said.
The move would help deflate home prices and control the housing market, partly by removing speculators from the system, he added.
"The rise in housing prices over the past few years has been caused by the increasing dollar and gold coin prices, and parallel markets," Mahmoudzadeh also said.
He also mentioned a previous move made by his ministry in which Tehran rental prices and those of other cities were capped on a price per square metre
49​ IRAN Country Report December 2020 www.intellinews.com