EghtesadOnline: The parliament has voted against the bill obliging the government to streamline the distribution network for providing Iranian households with essential goods through consumer cooperatives, chain stores, guild units and related unions.

EghtesadOnline: Chain stores are not suffering from a shortage of basic goods, but ungrounded rumors on the Internet have made people turn to overpurchasing, the deputy chairman of Chain Stores Union said.

EghtesadOnline: Iranian chain stores have a 120-trillion-rial ($3.2 billion) share of the country’s 1.3-quadrillion-rial ($34.6 billion) retail market, the head of National Union of Chain Stores , Amir Khosro Fakhrian, said.