If there were easy fixes empires would be born every day, now wouldn’t they?
First and foremost is stop abusing your population when your under draconian sanctions. This forces large % of educated talent to leave for western pastures. The brain drain alone has cost Iran $100T+ (ie unquantifiable) in economy potential in past 30 years. You have Iranians now managing or leading in some of the biggest western companies in the world. Shame.
Compare that to India/China/Japan/South Korea/Taiwan where the brain drain is not nearly as severe. In case of India and China they can rely on statistical distribution curve of their population to have a constant supply of highly educated worker pool.
The 2nd move would be to reign in corruption and improve contract laws. The basic building blocks of any foreign investor is strong enforcement of property rights and contract laws. The same fundamental structure that allows Iran to circumvent sanctions also breeds corruption and stagnation.
After the initial JCPOA was signed a wave of naive investors (including Western based Iranians) ran to Iran to hit the so called gold mine - an opening of the biggest underdeveloped economy since Soviet Union collapse.
Quickly many got taken advantage of because in Iran it’s more about who you know and how much influence you have then actual legal basis. Fraud is disguised very well. If you try to sue me or take me to court, I’ll go to the judges house that night and put an envelope of cash in his hands. It’s really that easy. It’s a game of ‘climb the ladder’ who can go up higher on the ladder to curry favor. If you know people in IRGC or government agencies then forget about it, you can crush your opponents especially naive foreigners.
Lastly largely prioritizing domestic industry has been shown widely in economic academia to be negative to long term GDP/per capita. Resistance economy is an oxymoron since it’s kills the economy as it breeds corruption and lack of necessary institutions/reform that facilitate long term sustainable growth.
China can do a resistance economy, not Iran. First you need to master the technologies (play nice to the superior tech organization) THEN you play hardball and can shield your nation from sanction. Iran came out of the gate swinging at everyone because it thought black gold will flow forever and couldn’t envision the rise of deep sea oil drilling and shale oil revolutionizing oil production (known as Dutch disease).
Iran’s problems don’t have easy fixes. But it doesn’t appear that any administration has taken any serious attempt to fix them, other than reducing subsidies to improve government budget and sustainability.
