Masoud Pezeshkian said that only 2 to 3 billion dollars of the 12 billion dollars' worth of petrol needed has been bought, and that with the money available, paying staff salaries takes precedence over importing petrol.
The main building of Tehran's Shariat Razavi Hospital, one of the Social Security hospitals, has been closed and medical services moved to a cramped space in its courtyard.
Brent crude fell to $104 on Thursday, 15 October, despite Islamic Republic attacks in the Strait of Hormuz; the US is weighing easing sanctions on some shadow fleet tankers.
The IMF warned that a prolonged war and fresh energy disruptions would hit the Middle East with a harsher shock; the Fund forecasts Iran's economy will shrink by 7.6 percent.
Hojjat Abdolmaleki, labour minister in Ebrahim Raisi's government, said on state television that Iran's economy has no problem except high prices and inflation; point-to-point inflation has reached 89.8 percent.
Jorge Moreira da Silva, UN Under-Secretary-General, warned that Asia and Africa face a food crisis if the plan to move fertiliser through the Strait of Hormuz is not implemented within weeks.
Prince Reza Pahlavi's media office released a video by Borghan Nezami; the Iran Prosperity Project economist spoke of households taking refuge in the dollar as the rial collapses.
OPEC's monthly report shows Iran's oil production fell by 99,000 barrels to 1.957 million barrels a day in September; crude exports remain at zero.
Citizens report electricity bills for homes, shops and workshops rising two to several dozen times over; despite blackouts and lower consumption, others are not paying their bills.
Wheat farmers have still not been paid in full for the wheat they delivered, and about 18,000 billion tomans remain owed to them; farmers reach autumn wheat sowing without money.
Hossein-Ali Shahriari, chairman of parliament's health committee, said the shortage of medical equipment has reached the point where patients in some state hospitals supply their own sheets and blankets.
To get LNG cargoes through the Strait of Hormuz under the threat of Islamic Republic attacks, Qatar has turned to its oldest tankers running with their identification systems off.
Prince Reza Pahlavi called inflation a "hidden tax"; Borgan Nezami, an economist with the Iran Prosperity Project, explained how this tax devours people's savings.
The US Treasury Department has fined Bank of America more than $1.2 billion for violating sanctions, including those on the Islamic Republic, and for weak anti-money-laundering controls.
Vortexa data shows the Islamic Republic's crude oil exports fell to zero in October under the US naval blockade, and LPG exports dropped 48 percent.
Unemployment benefit payments to a number of laid-off workers have fallen up to two months behind; the Social Security Organization has blamed the banks.
On Tuesday 13 October, Fatemeh Mohajerani announced a 500,000-toman increase in food-voucher credit for some households — an amount that does not even equal the price of a kilo of meat.
The Student Welfare Fund has reduced the state's share of meals for students past their standard term count; an eleventh-term student pays 30 percent of the cost of each meal.
In its new World Economic Outlook, the International Monetary Fund forecast that Iran's economy will shrink 7.6 percent in 2026 under sanctions and the US naval blockade.
Masoud Pezeshkian, president of the Islamic Republic, said the real price of gasoline is not 1,500 tomans, but that a sudden price increase would throw society into disarray.
