TEHRAN – Iran's gross domestic product (GDP), including the oil sector, has registered a positive growth of 0.8 percent in the first nine months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20 -December 20, 2020), according to the data released by the Statistical Centre of Iran (SCI).

The figure increased by 0.2 percent with oil excluded, IRIB reported.

The SCI data put the growth for the country’s agriculture, industries, and mining, and services sectors at 5.5 percent, 3.7 percent, and -1.8 percent, respectively for the mentioned period.

Back in December 2020, Governor of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) Abdolnaser Hemmati had announced that the country’s GDP growth - both with and without oil - became positive.

“Today's report of the Economic Accounts Department of the Central Bank indicates that the country’s GDP growth in the first six months of the current year (March 19-September 20) was positive with and without oil,” Hemmati wrote in a statement.

According to the official, the country’s GDP excluding oil rose 1.4 percent in the mentioned period, while the figure increased by 1.3 percent with oil included.

Iran’s economic growth in the first and second quarters of the current year with oil were -2.9 percent and + 5.1 percent, respectively, and economic growth without oil in the mentioned quarters was -0.6 percent and + 3.2 percent, respectively, Hemmati said.

In one of its latest World Outlook reports titled “The Long and Difficult Ascend” published in October 2020, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) put the Iranian economic growth in 2020 at 3.2 percent.

The international body’s estimation of Iran’s economy improved 0.1 percent in this report compared to its previous report published in June 2020.

EF/MA