By Staff Writer
For a second consecutive year, the expectation is that Iran’s economy will continue to diminish as the country copes the sanctions re-imposed by the US. According to an International Monetary Fund senior official, inflation may reach 40 percent.
Last November sanctions against the Iranian regime’s oil exports were re-imposed by Washington, who demanded that buyers of Iranian oil stop purchases by May, or face sanctions. The six months of waivers that allowed Iran’s eight biggest buyers to continue importing limited volumes have come to an end.
According to IMF estimates, in 2018, Iran’s economy shriveled by 3.9, and Jihad Azour, director of the IMF’s Middle East and Central Asia department, told Reuters it is expected to drop another 6 percent in 2019.
This number may be short though, as the projection preceded the latest elimination of waivers. “Clearly the re-imposition of sanctions and the removal of the waivers will have additional negative impact on the Iranian economy both in terms of growth and in terms of inflation, where inflation could reach 40 percent or even more this year,” Azour said.
Earlier this month, a US official announced that US sanctions against Iran have denied its regime more than $10 billion in oil revenue. As well, the rial, Iran’s official currency, has lost more than 60 percent of its value, disrupting Iran regime’s foreign trade and boosting annual inflation.
While officially, the Iranian rial’s rate is set at 42,000 rials to the US dollar, its market rate on Sunday stood at around 144,000 against the US dollar, according to foreign exchange website bonbast.com.
Azour stressed that the Iranian regime must eliminate the gap that exists between the market exchange rate and the official exchange rate. He said, “By aligning the market and official rates this will help tame and control inflation and will reduce pressure on the exchange rate.”
The currency has dropped from levels of around 43,000 at the end of last year. Ordinary Iranians have watched the value of their savings erode, which in turn triggered panic buying of dollars.
The current trend is indicative of Iran regime’s worsening economy which is a direct result of wasting the wealth of a nation on warmongering and export of Terrorism by funding proxies in the region and around the world and also corruption and theft by the ruling mullahs. The only solution is Regime Change which as Mrs. Maryam Rajavi the President Elect of the Iranian Resistance has time and again declared is within reach.
