January 22, 2021
The rate of inflation continues to rise, hitting an annual rate of 46.2 percent as of January 20, the end of the 10th month of the current Persian year.
That was not only extremely high by global standards, it was also more than twice the rate targeted last April as the Central Bank’s goal for inflation this Persian year. The Bank set a target of 22 percent, so the actual rate is more than double the goal and suggests to many that the Central Bank is badly out of touch with economic reality in Iran.
Looking globally, of more than 200 economies monitored by the World Bank, only three had higher inflation rates than Iran—Sudan at 51 percent, South Sudan at 188 percent and Venezuela at 255 percent. The World Bank published no figure for Argentina where the rate is considered astronomical. Only 14 countries in toto showed rates of 10 percent or greater.
The worldwide average is 2.3 percent, the World Bank said. But the rate for Iran’s region—the Middle East and North Africa—is a mere 1.1 percent, including Iran.
The Statistical Center of Iran uses two measures of inflation. The main measure, which is the inflation compared with the same month a year earlier, gave Iran an annual rate of 46.2 percent or 1.4 percentage points more than as of the month before.
The second rate, which is the average of inflation for the 12 months ending in Dey, showed an inflation rate of 32.2 percent, a hike of 1.7 percentage points from the month before.
The calculation is done for a dozen categories of goods. The highest rate in Dey was for food & beverages and stood at 59.9 percent. Because people buy food almost every day, that is a very substantive category with the public, especially housewives, who see inflation more than their husbands and have often been quite vocal.
A real political crisis is likely to result if the overall rate surpasses 50 percent, which it has only done in recent decades in the three months of spring 2019.
