Page 17 - IRANRptSep22

3.0 Macro Economy
3.1 Macroeconomic overview
Iran’s economic growth reaches 5.7% in Persian calendar Q3
Iran’s recession ‘over as economy clocks 2020/2021 calendar year growth of 3.6%
Sanctions drive
A report by the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) says that Iran’s economic growth recorded 5.7% in the third quarter of the current Iranian calendar year (September 23 – December 21, 2021), it announced on March 14.
Iran’s economy has continued to rebound despite US sanctions still levied on it through local production and a boost in exports thanks to high oil and gas prices in the global market.
The report said that the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) stood at $13.4bn in the three-month period, showing 5.7% growth compared to last year’s corresponding period.
The CBI’s report put the country’s overall economic growth in the nine months to December 21, 2021 at 4.1%.
The improvement of GDP in the period under review was largely due to 8.1, 3.8 and 5.4% growth in services, industries and mines, and oil groups respectively.
The agriculture group, however, fell by 2.5% in the three-month period in comparison to figures from the last year’s corresponding period.
The country’s GDP including oil revenues and excluding oil revenues registered 4.1 and 3.4% growth respectively in comparison to the first nine months of the preceding year.
Iran’s economy grew by 3.6% in the 2020/2021 Persian calendar year (ended March 20), Akbar Komijani, lately appointed caretaker governor at the Central Bank of Iran (CBI), was cited as saying by Press TV.
If verified, it would mean Iran has emerged from the long and bitter recession that set in around May 2018 when former US president Donald Trump hit Tehran with renewed and intensified heavy sanctions.
Komijani was also reported as stating that Iranian GDP expanded in the Persian year fourth quarter by 7.7%. That was said to have followed two successive quarters of growth beginning late July 2020.
Iran’s economy, excluding oil revenues, expanded by 2.5% in the last Persian year while the oil sector itself grew by 11.2%, according to the details given by the acting central bank chief.
“This situation indicates that the Iranian economy’s GDP has been out of recession in three quarters both with oil and without oil,” IRIB News quoted Komijani as saying.
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 estimated it to decline by 3.7% in 2020.
17 IRAN Country Report September 2022 www.intellinews.com