Iran’s monthly inflation down to 35.5%
Iran has reported a further drop in its annual inflation rate amid better government controls on basic good supplies and tighter monetary rules.
Figures published on Tuesday showed that the consumer price index (CPI) had increased by 35.5% in the year leading to July 21 compared to the year before to reach 255.2, Press TV reported.
The figures, released by the official government statistics agency the Statistical Center of Iran, showed that the headline inflation rate had dropped by 0.6% compared to the same rate reported in late June.
The SCI had reported a 0.9% decline in inflation rate in June compared to May.
The downward trend in inflation in Iran should be regarded as a success for the outgoing administrative government in the country a year after it was grappling with inflation as high as 49%.
SCI figures showed consumer prices had risen by 2.2% on a month-on-month basis in the calendar month to late July, with prices of food, beverages and smoking products rising 1.6% while prices of non-food goods and services rising 2.5% over the same period.
The point-to-point inflation rate, which compares prices in two similar months of back-to-back years, topped 32.2% in the month to late July, up 0.3% compared to the figures reported in late June, said the SCI.
Head of the Central Bank of Iran, Mohammadreza Farzin, stated on Wednesday that since 2018, the intensification of new sanctions on the Iranian economy has led to a chain reaction of inflation, rising exchange rates, increasing interest rates and heightened liquidity.
“In other words, we found ourselves trapped in a cycle of inflation and escalating exchange rates, which continuously fueled inflation in monetary variables, CRP inflation, PPI inflation, and producer inflation,” he remarked during a cabinet performance report session of the current government that addressed monetary variables.
He said that regarding monetary policies, liquidity, which had increased to over 40%, has now decreased to the 20% level and currently sits at 25%.
Experts say lower inflation rates in Iran, a country grappling with a series of unprecedented economic hardships caused by US sanctions, is a result of better government controls on imports and distribution of basic goods supplies, including animal feed and grains.
They say tighter monetary rules have also allowed the Iranian government to have a better control on the money supply and inflation in the country.