Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei said in his New Year address at Imam Reza's holy shrine that the enemies attack 'our points of strength'.
He said that the Iranian nation are pious believers, and this is among our most important points of strength.
The Supreme Leader said that no other revolution has like the Islamic Revolution managed to resist against the strongest world powers, sanctions, media campaign, Iran phobia and Islamophobia, but the Iranian nation, alone managed to resist against them all.
Referring to the recent unrest, he said that the US president and some European leaders supported those rioters, who were only a very, very small fraction of the Iranian nation, and was aimed at, at least to weaken the Islamic system, and as everyone saw, the rallies on the 22nd of Bahman of the past year were more populous than ever before.
He said that the scientific and technological advancements are the other points of strength of the Islamic system, even amid the Americans' maximum sanctions, including in health sector, nuclear sector, aerospace engineering, the biotechnology, construction of refineries, hospitals, amid sever western sanctions.
The Supreme leader said that Iran's relations with the west were weakened, and with America, we did no have relations, but we strengthened our relations with the Asian, regional and even the African and Latin American countries, and we were not isolated.
Our topmost point of weakness is our economic problems The Supreme Leader said that there are 4 or 5 points of weakness on our system, the most important one of which is our economic problems, some of which have roots in the past and some are due to the mostly state-owned economy.
Ayatollah Khamenei said that privatization laws were passed years ago, but economic justice was not achieved as some privatizations were semi-governmental, which are very ugly, and some other government possessions were not even transferred to the people.
He said that Iran exports oil and this is our most important export, but the importers have been gaining more than we, who both produced, prepared, packed and exported it.
The leader said that Iran's attachment of dollar is another point of weakness, and while some countries have rid themselves of the hegemony of dollar, we have still not done so, and we must do it.
He said that continuous and rapid economic growth is needed, and while today we have reached 8% economic growth, a decade ago we either had negative, or rates as low as 1%, but this growth must be preserved if economic blossoming is in mind.
The Supreme Leader said that reliance on the people's might is the best way to harness inflation, and lower the expensive consumer goods' prices.
He said that the people must enter the economic activities, and before that the path must be paved for the people's presence, which is needed.
Ayatollah Khamenei said that the people must also get involved in foreign trade, the knowledge-based companies, and the parliament, too, must devise the needed laws