TEHRAN – International Monetary Fund (IMF), in its latest estimates of the world’s macroeconomic indicators, has seen Iran’s current account balance increase by $20.886 billion in 2022.

Based on the IMF data, Iran’s account balance reached $32.031 billion in 2022 from $11.145 billion in the previous year.

According to the fund, the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) based on purchasing power parity reached $1.6 trillion in 2022, indicating an increase of $150 billion from $1.45 trillion in 2021.

The IMF put the Islamic Republic’s GDP per capita at $18,660 in 2022, increasing $1,580 from 2021 in which the figure stood at $17,080.

The fund, in its latest World Economic Outlook report titled “Countering the Cost-of-Living Crisis” published on October 11, predicted that Iran's economy will experience a positive growth of three percent in 2022, following its upward trend for the third consecutive year.

IMF anticipated that Iran's inflation rate will also improve in the current year.

The international body had put Iran’s inflation rate in 2021 at 40.1 percent, adding that not only Iran’s inflation rate will not increase in 2022 as compared to a year earlier, but it will hit 40 percent at large, showing a bit decline.

Therefore, the IMF expects Iran’s economy to experience positive growth for the third year in a row in 2022 in spite of tough sanctions imposed by the United States against Iran.

Iranian economy experienced a 3.1 percent negative growth in 2019 following the U.S. maximum pressure policy imposed against Iran, IMF said, adding that Iran’s economy moved out of recession in 2020 despite the global coronavirus pandemic.

Earlier this week, World Bank also predicted the Iranian economy to grow by 2.9 percent in 2022.

In its latest economic report on the MENA region, dubbed “A New State of Mind: Greater Transparency and Accountability in the Middle East and North Africa”, the bank said that the Islamic Republic’s Account Balance is also going to improve in 2022 reaching 3.8 percent of the GDP. The figure stood at 3.5 percent last year.

EF/MA