‘Iran economic situation on mend’

The governor of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) says there are strong signs that the country’s economic situation is getting better despite the sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic over its nuclear energy program.

“The economic situation in Iran is on the mend,” Valiollah Seif said in an interview with Bloomberg, predicting a 3-percent economic growth for the country this year.

“The economic program we have right now is based on the fact the sanctions will continue, so this is a given assumption,” Seif said. “Naturally, if sanctions are removed, we would experience much better results.”

He also said that the CBI is trying to target a single-digit inflation rate by 2016.

The comments came after the bank said that Iran’s economy has grown for the first time in two years.

New figures released by the CBI on September 25 show that the economy expanded 4.6 percent in the first quarter of the current Iranian calendar year (started March 21, 2014).

Iran’s economic growth rate turned positive after the country experienced months of stagflation, suffering negative economic growth combined with rising inflation rate.

New projections released by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in its World Economic Outlook predicted that Iran will grow 1.5 percent this year, followed by 2.3 percent in 2015.

The Washington-based IMF also projected average inflation rate of 23 percent this year and 22 percent in 2015.

In the last Persian calendar year (ended March 20, 2014), Iran’s economy shrank to -1.9 percent.

Iran’s inflation rate dropped to 23.2 percent in the Persian calendar month of Mordad (July 23-August 22) showing a sharp decrease compared with the 40.1-percent figure in the same period last year.

The Iranian administration has expressed its determination to reduce the existing inflation rate to a one-digit level.

DB/MAM/KA