Iran’s finance minister Ehsan Khandouzi says the government is determined to contain high levels of inflation in the country through tighter fiscal and monetary policies.

Speaking in a press conference on Tuesday, Khandouzi admitted that the government was not content with the pace of rises reported in consumer prices in Iran in the past three months.

However, he said that major economic indicators reported in September, including a decrease in the pace of money supply growth in Iran, showed that the country is on the right path to contain inflation.
 “These are signs that government’s determination to control inflation is not just words,” the minister was quoted as saying by the IRIB News.
The remarks came two days after the Iranian government’s statistics agency said that the country's annual consumer prices index (CPI) had risen by 0.8% to 42.9% in September.

The agency said in a report that Iran’s month on month inflation rate had also surged by 0.8% to 3% in September while CPI calculated on a point-to-point basis was reported at 48.6% against the same month last year.

Khandouzi said that the rise in September’s inflation rate was mainly a result of higher rents and hikes in the prices of certain consumer goods.

However, he said the rises were not acceptable to the government, adding that President Ebrahim Raisi had demanded explanations from various departments responsible for the issue.

In interviews and statements made in April, Khandouzi and other members of Raisi’s economic team had boasted about government’s success in bringing down Iran's inflation rate to below 40% for a first time in a year.

That comes as Iran has reported increases in the CPI of around one percentage point per month since July.

 

 

 

By PRESS TV