Page 4 - IRANRptMay21

1.0 Executive summary
Iran has moved out of its three-year recession after recording two consecutive quarters of growth, the Central Bank of Iran’s (CBI’s) governor Abdolnasser Hemmati has announced on his Instagram account. 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.
Trump’s sanctions drive against Iran kicked in halfway through 2018, a year that brought a GDP contraction of 6%, according to the World Bank. Things worsened in 2019 as the sanctions screw was tightened, with economic output falling 6.8%. The World Bank estimates it declined by 3.7% in 2020.
Iran looks set to be engulfed by what would be its fourth coronavirus wave. Anxieties that its week-long Nowruz celebrations of the Persian new year, which took place last week to bring in the Persian year of 1400, would cause another surge of coronavirus cases appear to have been well-founded. Its daily infection count this week moved back into five figures for the first time since December.
In terms of its coronavirus vaccination programme, Iran has vaccinated roughly 80% of its medical staff dealing with COVID-19. The country started inoculating citizens in February using Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine, but progress is slow. If scheduled deliveries of other vaccines take place in coming weeks, including through the COVAX world programme, it should pick up. A domestically developed vaccine is expected to become available in May.
New US President Joe Biden has reiterated that his administration will lift sanctions on Iran if Tehran returns to “strict compliance with the nuclear deal”. The new US administration’s continuation of the so-called maximum pressure campaign previously installed by the Trump government has not been taken well in Iran, which was hoping for a change in tune from Washington. Despite warm gestures after taking office in January, Biden has not budged on Iran, saying that it should re-enter the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) before the US will consider lifting sanctions. Tehran, meanwhile, said it is Washington, which left the deal in 2018 under Trump’s direction, which is at fault. Tehran on February 28 ruled out closed-door meetings with Washington and other major powers to break the log jam currently.
Proponents of the nuclear deal would like to see it restored prior to Iran’s June presidential election which may strengthen the power that hardliners can exert in Iranian foreign policy and make a restoration of the agreement that much more difficult or even implausible.
A month before November’s US election, Iran’s rial hit the 300,000-to-the-dollar threshold for the first time ever on the unregulated free market in Tehran as tensions with the Trump administration tightened and a coronavirus third wave took its toll on the economy. That put the rial 46% down against the dollar since the start of 2020. The currency has since recovered to around 240,000, but remains volatile. During the course of the four-year Trump presidency, the rial lost 80% against the greenback.
4 IRAN Country Report May 2021 www.intellinews.com