TEHRAN - Central Bank of Iran (CBI) Caretaker Governor Akbar Komijani has said that the country’s economy grew by 3.6% in the calendar year to March both with oil and without oil, a sign the country is out of a deep recession caused by American sanctions and the coronavirus pandemic.
Komijani said that Iran’s gross domestic product (GDP) had continued to expand in the fourth quarter to March 20 by 7.7%.
That came following two successive quarters of growth beginning late July when Iran started to gradually emerge from the economic impacts of the pandemic and the U.S. sanctions, said Komijani.
He said Iran’s economy without oil had grown 2.5% over the last calendar year while the oil sector itself had expanded by 11.2%.
“This situation indicates that the Iranian economy’s GDP has been out of recession in three quarters both with oil and without oil,” the IRIB News quoted him as saying.
Iran’s economy had contracted by 6.5% in the calendar year to March 2020 mainly as a result of U.S. sanctions targeting its oil sales. Oil sector GDP had declined by 38.7% over that year, according to government figures.
A report on CBI’s website published on Tuesday said Iran’s GDP in the fourth quarter of calendar year to late March had amounted 6,358.8 trillion rials while measured on baseline prices of 2011.
That GDP figure is equal to nearly $26.5 billion if calculated on exchange prices in the unofficial market.
Komijani said GDP in Iran’s manufacturing and mining sectors grew by 7.1% in year to March from 2.3% in the previous year.
He said growth in agriculture sector was 4.5%, down from previous year because of lower precipitation rates while services sector GDP was zero over the same period against minus 0.2% recorded in the year to March 2020.