What's gone wrong with Iran's economy?
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 14 January 2026
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Outrage has been growing in Iran over the country's struggling economy. Any growth this year or next looks unlikely.
Protests starting in the capital have spread around the country, driven by mounting economic pressures, sanctions and rising consumer prices. They've been met with a violent crackdown by the government. More than two thousand people are reported to have been killed since the protests began and Iran remains under a days-long internet blackout.
In this edition of Business Daily, we examine what has gone wrong with Iran’s economy and why financial pressures have led to so many people taking to the streets.
If you'd like to contact the programme, our email address is businessdaily@bbc.co.uk
Presenter: Rahul Tandon Producers: David Cann and Matt Lines
(Picture: An employee arranges a shelf at a store in the Iranian capital Tehran on the 7th of January 2026. Credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:08.5 | Hello, this is Business Daily here on the BBC World Service with me, Rahul Tandon. |
| 0:13.9 | We're asking what's gone wrong with Iran's economy, |
| 0:17.6 | and why has that triggered mass demonstrations across the country? |
| 0:21.9 | I think it's the worst, the most direst condition of Iran in the past 50 years. |
| 0:27.7 | We look at the impact that that's having on people's lives. |
| 0:31.4 | People don't need meat anymore. You know, like most Middle Easterns, we love kebab in Iran, |
| 0:35.5 | but it's like a luxury now. Chicken also kind of a luxury. |
| 0:39.2 | Fish, forget about it. |
| 0:40.8 | And as the protests grow, will the government's promise of direct cash payments ease the crisis? |
| 0:46.5 | A little bit of rice, a little bit of bread, a little bit of cash subsidy that can be spent on food. |
| 0:52.2 | It's just not enough. |
| 0:53.5 | That's all coming up on Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 1:00.4 | Thousands of people have taken to the streets across the country. |
| 1:08.3 | We know that many people have died. It's difficult to give you an exact number. |
| 1:13.2 | The Reuters News Agency, though, says an Iranian official has told them about 2,000 people have |
| 1:18.6 | been killed, including security personnel. There are, of course, many different factors. |
| 1:24.8 | But here on Business Daily, we wanted to look at the economic ones. |
| 1:29.3 | The collapse of the currency, the impact of sanctions and the effects of corruption are the three |
| 1:34.7 | areas that we're going to focus on for you. But how did we get here? Let's go back to 1979. |
| 1:41.6 | This 10 minutes to 10, Romania was being held down the steps of his chartered Air France jet, |
| 1:47.0 | to set foot on Iranian ground for the first time in 15 years. |
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