Iran’s cenbank says inflation down to lowest in 4 years

Figures released by the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) show the country has managed to bring down inflation to its lowest since 2020 when prices started to rise because of US sanctions and the economic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic.

CBI figures covered in a Wednesday report by the IRIB News showed that Iran’s annual inflation rate had dropped to 37.3% in the calendar month to November 20.

The CBI said the figure was the lowest reported in four years.

It said the consumer price index (CPI), measured on a point-to-point scale, had increased 35.3% in November this year compared to November 2023.

Monthly inflation in the calendar month to late November was 3%, up 0.5% from the previous month, it said.

CBI chief Mohammad Reza Farzin used the data to defend the country’s economic records in recent months, saying that a closer look at the Producer Price Index (PPI) in November showed that the government's anti-inflation policies were on the right track.

Farzin, who was re-appointed to his post after an administration change in mid-summer, said that the average PPI in November was 27.6 %, the lowest reported since February 2019.

He said point-to-point PPI was 27.6% in November while monthly PPI, which he said is a gauge of inflation, was 2.4% in the same month.

Iran has been grappling with high but controlled levels of inflation since 2020, a year after the US toughened its sanctions on Iranian oil exports and when the country was starting to feel the economic impacts of the global spread of the coronavirus.

Iran’s annual inflation rose to nearly 49.1% in May 2023, just shy of an all-time record reported some three decades ago.

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