BrazilResearch consultancy finds broad local concern over Iran economy
Iranians are widely dissatisfied with the country’s current economic management according to a recent survey conducted by IranPoll, a Canada-based market research and analysis consultancy focused exclusively on Iran.
With nine partner offices in Iran, and its operations centred entirely on the country, the Canadian-based IranPoll is a full-service opinion research consultancy offering specialised services in various aspects of local market entry, including branding, pricing and marketing, business environment and competition analysis, feasibility studies, strategy development, and customer and distribution channel analytics.
Established over a decade ago, the firm promotes itself as providing international clients with “tailored research services, evidence-led counsel, and a dispassionate understanding of the Iranian people that is based on empirical evidence and sound scientific methods,” with listed clients including global market research and consulting firms Ipsos, Kantar, and Gallup, along with a range of Fortune 500 companies and numerous leading US universities and policy research centres.
The company’s website states; “IranPoll is unique in that it believes in and solely relies on transparent and scientifically sound methods of analysis, which could be objectively verified and independently replicated, to provide evidence-based consultancy and integrated action plans that best address the unique challenges and objectives of our clients.”
While not without its detractors in the polarised political landscape of the United States, IranPoll’s methodology has been previously endorsed by The Washing Post as ‘standing up to scrutiny’, and through its polling system the firm was able to accurately predict the outcome of the last year’s Iranian Presidential elections well within the margin of error.
In its latest country poll, conducted subsequent to the recent widespread unrest which was reportedly sparked by austere government spending and extensive price hikes in basic consumer goods, the firm has found a broader consensus among the population as to the protesters’ complaints of fiscal mismanagement, with over two thirds of respondents describing the economy as bad.
The numbers
At 69%, it was the poll’s highest negative response in the category to date, rising six points from the previous survey in June. A further 42% stated that their family had become worse off financially over the previous four years, while 58% believed that economic conditions were getting worse. More directly, the majority felt that the government wasn’t doing enough to aid the poor (73%), and unemployment was cited as the single most important problem facing Iran, with the 40% response far outstripping other issues such as mismanagement (6%) and sanctions (3%).
The survey, carried out randomly among a nationally representative 1,002 participants from various regions in the country, and released in conjunction with the University of Maryland’s Center for International and Security Studies (CISSM), also revealed, however, that most Iranians support the current system, with 54% strongly rejecting and 77% disagreeing with the notion that Iran needed fundamental political change – despite 96% of respondents saying that the government needs to more to fight financial and bureaucratic corruption.
