The IMF report released last week also predicted that Iran will manage to bring its high inflation lower and return to growth next year despite Western sanctions.
However, much of the IMF analysis is based on statistics provided by the Iranian government, which private economists say are not reliable, and most of the report was prepared before the rial’s plunge.
In its semi-annual World Economic Outlook, the IMF forecast Iran’s gross domestic product would shrink 0.9 percent this year after 2 percent growth last year.
Its prediction for this year was a substantial downgrade from a forecast of 0.4 percent growth in its last report in April.
But the IMF projects GDP will expand next year by 0.8 percent.
The IMF expects inflation to moderate to 21.8 percent in 2013 from 25.2 percent in 2012. Many private economists, however, think inflation is already much, much higher.
The IMF predicted unemployment would hit 14.1 percent this year and 15.6 percent next, up from 12.3 percent in 2011. Most private economists believe those numbers are far too low. The Ahmadi-nejad Administration has also been promising unemployment rates in the single digits by next year.
The IMF report did not include an estimate on how much sanctions would cut Iran’s oil exports.
As an international body, the IMF often faces a delicate balancing act in maintaining good relations with the countries it monitors while pressing them to provide accurate data and adopt economic policies it favors.
