TEHRAN – Iranian Labor and Social Welfare Minister Solat Mortazavi has said up to 2.4 quadrillion rials (about $82.9 billion) of investment is required for achieving an eight percent economic growth by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20, 2023), IRIB reported.

Speaking in an employment seminar in Mashhad on Thursday, Mortazavi mentioned the capacity of idle production units in various provinces and said: “If we use the existing capacities of neglected employers across the country, this amount [the required investment] will be reduced to almost a quarter.”

Iran’s economic growth is expected to reach three percent in the current year, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Based on the IMF data, despite the sanctions and the negative impact of the pandemic, the Iranian economy is going to outperform many countries both in the region and across the world.

IMF, in its latest World Economic Outlook report titled “War sets back global recovery”, revised up its projection of Iran’s real gross domestic product (GDP) in 2022 to three percent from its previous report in which the figure was two percent.

The increase in Iran’s economic growth came as the entity modified its forecasts of the global economic growth from 4.4 percent in its previous report published in January to 3.6 percent; the fund expects the global economy to follow the same modest growth and settle at 3.6 percent in 2023, as well.

The international body saw Iran’s inflation (consumer price changes) at 27.5 percent in 2022, decreasing 11.8 percent from 39.3 percent in 2021.

As reported, the country’s account balance which was – 0.1 percent of the country’s GDP in 2020 is expected to climb to one percent by the end of 2022.

EF/MA