TEHRAN, YJC. Iran’s inflation rate dropped by 2.2 percent in the previous Persian calendar month of Khordad (ended 21 June) following Tehran’s new economic policies, the Iranian administration’s spokesman says.
The inflation rate dropped to 26.2 percent in Khordad from 28.4 percent in the previous Iranian month, Mohammad-Baqer Nobakht said in a Friday interview, Press TV reports.
The Iranian official attributed the drop in the inflation rate to the fiscal policies of the administration’s economic team and expressed hope for an end to the existing recession and resumption of economic boom in the country.
Nobakht also said that the country’s unemployment rate reached 10.7 percent by the end of the spring.
According to the Statistical Center of Iran, the country’s unemployment rate was 10.6 percent in the same period last year.
In early June, the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) announced that the country’s inflation rate had decreased by 9.8 percent since the administration of President Hassan Rouhani took office in August last year.
According to the CBI report, Iran’s inflation rate reached 30.3 percent at the end of Persian calendar month of Farvardin (ended April 20) showing a sharp decrease compared with the 40.1-percent figure in September 2013.
The fall in the inflation rate started in November 2013, two months after Rouhani warned that the Iranian economy was in a state of stagflation.
Critics, however, oppose President Rouhani’s economic policies, saying his administration has failed to prevent the rising prices of commodities, particularly fuel, and encourage consumer spending.
The inflation rate passed the 40-percent ceiling at the end of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s tenure, despite his initial campaign promises that he would reduce the country’s inflation rate to a single-digit level.
Rouhani’s administration has envisaged a 25-percent inflation rate for the current Persian calendar year (ending March 2015).
Analysts believe that a rise in production of goods and services has reduced liquidation and led to the fall in the inflation rate.