“Inflation will slip below 20 percent by yearend,” Iranian President Hassan Rouhani pledged on Saturday. The following is the translation of a report the Islamic Republic News Agency filed on the president’s comments at a meeting with religious scholars and seminary students in Khorasan Razavi Province:
The President said the country is “out of recession” and added, “What makes this achievement all the more important is that it comes on the back of two successive years of negative economic growth.”
Mr. Rouhani went on to say, “First-quarter figures suggest the economy posted 1.8 percent growth. Of course, that figure does not take account of oil exports.”
President Rouhani further stated that over the past year his government has taken important steps on the foreign policy front. “The way the world looks at Iran today is different from their attitude in the past. The government has managed to change the world’s mentality toward the Islamic Republic.”
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In conclusion, the president described corruption as a deep-rooted problem the country is grappling with and said, “The fight against corruption can only be won in the long run. We need to join hands in order to eliminate the scourge of graft.”
