The Iranian media, which should logically have put the story on the top of page one under a banner headline, was censored by the government and did not report the forecast.
But many publications have evaded censorship by questioning officials and then reporting their statements saying the IMF is wrong when it forecasts no growth. Still, those stories were not given prominence and most Iranians are unaware of the bleak economic outlook forecast by the IMF.
Only four countries in the world are forecast to have lower growth than Iran in 2011—the Ivory Coast (-7.5 percent), which has been in a civil war, plus Greece (-3.0 percent), Portugal (-1.5 percent), and Spain (-0.1 percent), the sick triplets of Europe. Only one other country is forecast to have no growth this year: Tuvalu, a Pacific island ministate.
The IMF forecasts average world economic growth this year at 4.4 percent with the US economy growing at a paltry 2.8 percent. The average growth for the world’s developing countries—the group with which Iran should be compared—is 6.5 percent.
The 242-page annual report makes few references to Iran in the text. It does, however, say the absence of any growth this year is due in part to the phasing out of subsidies, which started December 19. The IMF urged the phase-out for many years and calls the policy “a much-needed reform that will yield benefits in the medium term.”
But low growth is not just a one-year experience for Iran. The IMF forecasts 2011 to be the fourth year of stagnation for Iran. Its annual publication, World Economic Outlook, released last week, shows Iran boomed in 2007 with 7.8 percent growth in its gross domestic product, one of its best years ever.
But since then, the record has been bleak: 1.0 percent growth in 2008, which was the worst for the 20 countries of the Middle East and North Africa; 0.1 percent growth in 2009, when four Arab countries more linked to the world economy saw their economies shrink; 1.0 percent in 2010, when only Iraq in the region did worse with 0.8 percent growth.
The forecast of 0.0 percent growth this year is the worst for the 20 countries of the region.
For next year, the IMF forecasts Iran’s economy will finally begin to grow by 3.0 percent—but that will still be the lowest for the region.
And that isn’t the only bad news. The IMF forecasts not only low growth but high inflation for Iran—prices rising 22.5 percent for the year 2011.
That is the second worst rate in the world. Only Iranian ally Venezuela is expected to do even worse with inflation of 29.8 percent.
The IMF says the surge in inflation is partly due to the elimination of subsidies on fuel. But the inflation rate actually began to rise a few months before Iran dropped subsidies on December 19.
No other countries are expected to each 20 percent inflation in 2011. In third place is Guinea with a forecast inflation rate of 19.6 percent.
The absence of any economic growth for Iran in 2011 is rubbed in when one looks at the forecasts for neighbors Afghanistan and Iraq, which Iran says are occupied by the Americans who are bleeding them of wealth. But the IMF forecasts growth of 8.0 percent for Afghanistan and 9.6 percent for Iraq.
The highest growth in the world is forecast for another neighbor—Qatar at 20.0 percent. The IMF says that growth is spurred in part by Qatar’s expansion of its natural gas output. Qatar is far ahead of Iran in developing the giant gasfield that the two countries share and which is known as South Pars in Iran and North Field in Qatar.
The major developing econ-omies of India and China are also forecast to continue booming this year with India at 8.2 percent and China at 9.6 percent.