One morning in a labyrinthine Tehran bazaar, a salesman was pitching a hot investment to shoppers. “Your money is dead,” he said of the country’s beleaguered currency, the rial. “Buy gold.”
Local prices for gold in Iran have outpaced a worldwide surge over the past year, as businesses buy the metal to skirt sanctions and ordinary Iranians invest to protect their savings amid the threat of military confrontation with the US and Israel.
The price of gold coins in the country has risen more than 80 per cent over the past 12 months in rial terms, from IR401mn to IR735mn (approximately $900). This compares with a 45 per cent increase in the global benchmark over the same period.