Central Bank of Iran Governor Ali Salehabadi said on Saturday that the economy of the Islamic Republic of Iran has seen growth in Q2 2021 despite the coronavirus pandemic and this indicated that the country has emerged from recession.
In a virtual meeting attended by International Monetary Fund Chairwoman Kristalina Georgieva, as well as central banks governors and chairs of financial institutions of the MENAP region, held on Saturday, Salehabadi said that just like many other countries, Iran was severely hurt by the coronavirus pandemic, but its economy is now on a strong path of improvement.
The latest statistics show a 6.2 percent growth in Iran GDP in Q2 2021 which is a great achievement despite tight restrictions on Iran's access to its funds abroad, CBI Governor added.
Iran’s non-oil economy grew by 4.7 percent in the same period, according to Salehabadi, indicating that Iran's economy has significantly climbed out of recession and moved towards improvement.
Salehabadi also said that unemployment retreated to 8.8 percent in Iran in Q2 2021 thanks to CBI and the administration’s supportive financial and monetary policies.
The official criticized the inequality in economic recovery among world regions and also in countries' access to the coronavirus vaccine resulting in different economic recovery processes.
No country is safe unless all the countries are protected against the virus, Salehabadi said, noting that any delay in vaccination in countries would pose a threat to the global economic perspective.
SDR allocation process in 2021 cannot help IMF member states meet their long-term COVID-19 vaccine demands, he underlined.
CBI Governor expressed support to the IMF’s new initiative to help members address climate change challenges, adding that the burden of climate change has been put on the countries with the minimum share in carbon emission.
He proposed that neighboring countries make multilateral funding and rich countries share their technological knowledge to better address climate change.