Page 4 - IRANRptDec21

1.0 Executive summary
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) in its latest World Economic Outlook published on October 13 has stuck with its forecast for a 2.5% expansion in Iran’s economic growth in 2021. The Fund also predicted that figure in April.
However, the IMF now calculates 2020/2021 Persian calendar year (ended March 20) GDP growth in Iran was 3.4%, up from its previous suggestion of 1.5%. For 2022, it anticipates 2.0%.
This would mean Iran has emerged from the long and bitter three-year recession that set in around May 2018 when former US president Donald Trump hit Tehran with renewed and intensified heavy sanctions.
Officials have credited higher exports and a general realignment of the economy, necessitated by the impact of heavy US sanctions, with securing the new growth.
November 29 saw the resumption of the Vienna talks between Iran and major powers aimed at finding a path to revive the 2015 nuclear deal, or JCPOA. Suspended five months ago, partly to avoid clashing with the Iranian presidential election, the talks resumed amid low expectations.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters on December 2 that he could judge in a day or so if Iran was engaging in the resumed Vienna nuclear deal talks in good faith. Blinken made the comments in Stockholm after Iran provided the European powers—who as intermediaries are shuttling between US and Iranian officials in Vienna—with drafts on sanctions removal and nuclear commitments.
The UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), stated on December 1 that Iran had started producing enriched uranium with advanced centrifuges at its Fordow plant dug into a mountain, further eroding the worth of the nuclear deal, drawn up to ensure Iran’s nuclear development programme is kept entirely peaceful in return for the lifting of sanctions on Tehran.
The IAEA announcement prompted Israel to call on world powers—Iran is directly negotiating with JCPOA signatories France, Germany, the UK, China and Russia and indirectly with the US via intermediaries—to stop the Vienna talks immediately. Iran on December 1 accused Israel of attempting to poison the atmosphere at the resumed nuclear deal negotiations in Vienna by spreading lies about Iranian nuclear development activities.
Iran on November 21 began a military court trial of 10 defendants of different military ranks over the shooting down of the January 2020 Ukraine-bound flight PS752. High-level Iranian officials should be seen as responsible for the downing of the plane by a missile unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), families of 140 of the victims said in a report released on November 24.
Iran this summer has suffered its worst drought in 50 years. The country has lately faced social unrest as riot police in Isfahan province arrested 67 people on November 27 at the scene of ongoing protests over the drying up of
4 IRAN Country Report December 2021 www.intellinews.com