Iran says GDP without oil grew 1.1% in year ending March

The Central Bank of Iran (CBI) has issued an initial estimate about economic growth in the country over the last calendar year, saying the gross domestic product (GDP) of the country was up 1.1 percent year on year in March 2020 without considering the share of oil revenues in the economy.

“The growth of the country’s oil-free economy in the year 1398 reached 1.1 percent,” said the CBI in a statement published on Monday while reiterating that the figures had been based on fixed prices recorded in fiscal year spanning 2011-2012.

The statement said Iran’s overall GDP, including the share of oil revenues, reached a total of 6,137.3 trillion rials (over $34 billion) over the last year, adding that the entire economy shrank 6.5 percent year on year in March.

It said the calculations, provided by the Economic Accounts Department of the CBI, were raw and could be revised.

The official IRNA news agency cited other reports by the CBI as saying that the total liquidity in Iran reported at the end of the past calendar year on March 19 was just more than 24,720 trillion rials (over $137 billion).

Facing a raft of American sanctions targeting its sale of oil, Iran has managed to stir growth in its non-oil economic sector.

The government says it is currently sustaining on a budget that has been emancipated from crude revenues to a great extent.

Sectors like manufacturing and agriculture have grown steadily for the past two years, enabling the government to find access to new sources of hard currency mainly through exports of various products to neighboring countries.

Oil revenues accounted for tens of billions of dollars in hard currency revenues for Iran before the United States imposed its unilateral sanctions on the country in November 2018.

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