Page 24 - Iran OUTLOOK 2025

The 2024-2025 budget thus represented a significant pivot in Iran's fiscal policy, characterised by strategic military investment alongside revenue-generating measures that had direct implications for household economics and living standards.
• 7.2 Debt and gross international reserves
In 2024, Iran's external financial position demonstrated notable shifts in both debt management and reserve accumulation. The country's external debt declined to $5.1bn from $6.3bn in 2023, continuing a pattern of minimal external borrowing that has characterised Iran's financial strategy in recent years. This relatively low debt level primarily reflects the impact of international sanctions, which have effectively limited Iran's access to global financial markets rather than indicating a deliberate choice to avoid external financing.
Concurrently, Iran's gross international reserves held by the Central Bank showed significant improvement, reaching $26.05bn in 2024 – a substantial increase from $20.7bn in 2023. This $5.35bn expansion in reserves represented a strengthening of Iran's external buffers, enhancing its capacity to manage external shocks and support international trade commitments.
8.0 Energy & Power
• 8.1 Oil production and transport
In 2024, Iran's oil sector demonstrated significant operational growth and technological advancement. Oil production reached 3.3mn bpd by November, marking an increase from 3.2mn bpd earlier in the year. This production growth contributed to an 8% expansion in combined oil and gas condensate output during the third quarter, reflecting the sector's improving operational capacity.
The transportation infrastructure supporting Iran's oil industry showed robust performance, with the Iran Oil Pipelines and Telecommunications Company achieving substantial throughput. In the first half of 2024, the company successfully transferred 70bn litres of petroleum products across the national pipeline network. This achievement underscores the vital role of efficient transportation infrastructure in supporting Iran's hydrocarbon sector, enabling the movement of products from
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