TEHRAN - The secretary of the Expediency Council has claimed the current economic downturn is the longest and deepest one in the Iranian history.

Economically speaking, the government is not integrated enough and is not powerful enough to get out of the downturn, Mohsen Rezaee told Tasnim on Saturday.

He also raised concern about high banking interests and regretted that “the industrialist has to sell his life to pay bank interests.”

“Rising expectations in the wake of the (nuclear) talks made them stop production,” the official pointed out.

Now that that inflation has reached less than 15 percent, economists and the mainstream demand should pay attention to economic growth, adding too much focus on lowering inflation has worsened the downturn and increased unemployment rate, Rezaee said.

SP/PA