Tehran, Iran, Oct. 3
By Mehdi Sepahvand -- Trend:
A recent report says the Producer Price Index (PPI) for the one year period ending in the Iranian-calendar month of Shahrivar (August-September) has hit 9.3 percent, showing 0.9 percent decline compared to one 12-month period before.
As the PPI is a pre-monitoring tool for predicting consumer inflation, this new report shows that the country's economic inflation will continue to fall in the coming months.
The PPI has been on decline in Iran since two years ago when President Hassan Rouhani came to power.
The Iranian economy's one-month inflation also reached 0.3 percent. The number had been 0.8 percent for the preceding month. Therefore, this month inflation dropped by 0.5 percent, the Central Bank of Iran reported Oct. 2.
The highest rise in main producer groups belonged to health and social work which has grown by 27.2 percent in this year's month of Shahrivar compared to the same month one year ago.
By contrast, the industrial PPI fell by 1.9 percent.
The economic inflation for the same month hit 15.1 percent.
The highest consumer price index also belonged to the health sector, registering the number 23.3 percent.
The biggest reduction in the commodity price index belonged to the tobacco group, falling by 4.2 percent.
While those who endorse Rouhani's economic policies say the reduction in inflation has to do with establishing monetary order in the government, controlling the growth rate of the monetary base and liquidity, and adjusting expected inflation, others worry that the reduction indicates stagnation.
The Central Bank of Iran (CBI) announced that the inflation rate in the urban area for the 12-month period to the fifth Iranian calendar month of Mordad (ended on Aug. 22) hit 15.4 percent, 0.2 percent less compared to preceding month.
However, the Statistical Center of Iran has put the inflation rate for the 12-month period to Mordad 13.8 percent, 0.3 percent less than the previous month.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has urged meeting an economic growth of 8 percent, which Rouhani said would try to achieve, however hard to reach.
Edited by CN