Iran's Economic Growth Rate Announced at Nearly One Percent for 2015

The Statistical Center of Iran announced on Wednesday, May 18, that the economic growth rate for the year 2015, excluding oil, reached about one percent. The economic growth rate for 2014 was reported at three percent. According to the report published on the center's website, the economic growth rate without oil last year was 0.9 percent, with the agricultural sector growing at 5.4 percent, the industrial sector shrinking by 2.2 percent, and the services sector growing by 0.2 percent. One day before the release of the Statistical Center's report, Mohammad Baqer Nobakht, the government spokesman, announced that the economic growth rate in the fourth quarter of last year was 1.6 percent without oil and 2 percent with oil. The economic growth rate in the final years of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's presidency was severely negative. After Hassan Rouhani's government took office, this index increased, but the increase has not been uniform. In September of last year, the ministers of economy, labor, industry, and defense requested an immediate decision from the Iranian president to prevent the economic recession from turning into a 'crisis.' In November, the Ministry of Industry, Mine, and Trade and the Central Bank announced the start of a plan to purchase Iranian goods as part of the government's 'anti-recession package.' Despite the introduction of the 'anti-recession package,' several government officials and economic experts have stated that Iranian industries remain in a critical state. The International Monetary Fund reported Iran's economic growth rate at zero percent for 2015 and predicted it would reach four percent in 2016. The Central Bank of Iran had announced in December 2013 that the country's economic growth in 2012, including oil, was negative 5.8 percent. This bank later stated in August 2014 that Iran's economic growth in 2012 was negative 6.8 percent. In 2014, Iran's economic growth reached three percent, but this increase did not continue, and the figure for the first nine months of last year was 0.7 percent.