Azerbaijan, Baku, Oct.13 / Trend R.Zamanov /
Head of Iranian Central Bank Valiollah Seyf said that the country's economy will increase by 3 per cent in the next Iranian calendar year (which will start on March 21).
"Iran faced a negative economic growth of -5.4 per cent last year, but the situation is not likely to change in the current year," the ISNA News Agency quoted Seyf as saying.
He went on saying that CBI's first priority is to control inflation and liquidity.
"Iran's currency lost about half of its value in the last 12 months of previous administration but fortunately it gained 20 percent of value after the country's presidential election," he added.
Earlier this month the International Monetary Fund predicted that Iran's economic growth rate will shrink by 1.5 percent in the current year, the Fars News Agency said, citing the IMF's global economic outlook report.
According to the report, Iran's economy shrank 1.9 percent in the past year. But it forecasted 1.3 percent growth rate for the Iranian economy in 2014.
The IMF has also said that Iran's inflation rate will hit 42.3 percent in 2013, predicting that the figure will be 29 percent in 2014.
According to the report the unemployment rate will be around 13.2 percent in the current year, compared to 12.2 percent in the past year.
Iranian Finance and Economic Affairs Minister Ali Tayyebnia previously said that low economic growth rate is currently the main challenge in the national economy.
Tayyebnia referred to high unemployment as another serious concern.
"For the time being, some 3.5 people are jobless in the country," he said, adding that the figure will soar to 8.5 million, because a large number of educated youth will graduate from universities soon and will seek jobs.
"The ministry will focus on improving the living standards through curbing inflation and flourishing businesses," he stated.
The Central Bank of Iran has recently reported that the country's gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate (excluding oil sector) was 3.2 percent in the Iranian calendar year 1390, which ended in March 2012, ISNA reported.
This is while the Statistics Center of Iran had put the figure at 3 percent.