Tehran, Iran, Oct. 13
By Milad Fashtami - Trend:
Iranian president Hassan Rouhani said that the country's inflation will fall below 20 percent by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20, 2015).
"Previously I had promised to decrease the inflation to below 25 percent in the current year, but now I say that the figure will drop below 20 percent," he said.
He went on to note that Iran's point-to-point inflation in previous year's calendar month of Tir (June 22-July 31) was 45 percent.
The point-to-point inflation rate statistics identify the rate between distinct points in time, such as the inflation rate at the end of a month compared to the rate of inflation at the end of the same month in the previous year.
"Iran's average monthly inflation increase was around 3 percent in the last year o previous administration. But now the average monthly rise is around one percent," Rouhani explained.
"We are containing the inflation, and simultaneously snapping economy out of recession," he said, adding that the government's goal is to increase the country's economic growth up to 6 percent by the end of current year.
Rouhani made the remarks at a live TV interview.
The Central Bank of Iran announced on September 26 that the inflation rate for the 12-month period to the sixth Iranian calendar month (ended on September 22) hit 21.1 percent.
The country's point-to-point inflation in the mentioned month was 14.4 percent, Iran's Mehr News Agency reported.
The consumer price index (CPI) also stood at 202 units in the sixth month of the current year, which is 1.4 units more than its preceding month.
Iranian Minister of Economic Affairs and Finance Ali Tayebnia said on October 7 that country's inflation in the next 12-month will not exceed 15 percent.
"So we can expect a considerable decrease in Iran's inflation," he said.
Iranian president has vowed to decrease the inflation rate to 5 percent in the [Iranian calendar] year of 1395 (to end on March 20, 2017).
The inflation rate in Iran in 2005, when Ex-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took the government was about 10.4 percent, but in mid-2013, when Ahmadinejd handed over the office to Rouhani, the inflation rate and point-to-point inflation rate were 37.5 percent and 44 percent, respectively.