November 27, 2020
The inflation rate is surging upward unrelentingly and is approaching a new record with little comment about it from government officials or the public.
The annual rate for the latest month was 46.4 percent, up a remarkable five percentage points in the solitary month. Since Now Ruz, the monthly climb in percentage points has been 1.2, 1.5, 4.4, 3.5, 4.0, 7.0 and 5.0.
But the media has said next to nothing about the huge surge in inflation, as it has instead focused on the tumbling rial and, more recently, the decline in the Tehran Stock Exchange index.
The record annual rate in any solitary month has been 52.1 percent in Ordibehesht (April-May) of 2019. The rate then plummeted to 19.8 percent, but has been rising again ever since Now Ruz this year.
The public may not be silent for long as the Statistical Center of Iran (SCI) said the inflation rate for food and beverages for just the single month of Aban (ending November 20) was an astounding 13.3 percent. Housewives often turn quite vocal when they see their food bills are rising while their husbands’ wages are not. The food bill is politically the most sensitive for the regime.
By the CIA tabulation of inflation rates, Iran had the worst rate in the entire world, though some of the CIA’s numbers were old and it had no figures for Congo, South Sudan and Venezuela.
By the tabulation published by the International Monetary Fund, four countries are suffering more inflation than Iran: Lebanon at 85.5 percent, Sudan at 141.6 percent, Zimbabwe at 622.8 percent and Venezuela at 6,500 percent. The IMF published no figures for Argentina, South Sudan and Syria.
The Statistical Center of Iran publishes inflation figures monthly using two forms of measurement. Comparing the latest month’s rate of inflation with the rate 12 months earlier (the international standard), Iran’s inflation rate at the end of Aban was 46.4 percent, up from 41.4 percent the month before. Using a 12-month average, the inflation rate at the end of Aban was a much lower 29 percent, up from 27.2 percent at the end of the previous month. Both measurements have shown the annual rate of inflation rising for the last three months.
