Iran has ranked first in inflation among the Middle Eastern countries at a time that the Iranian president recently announced that the inflation rate is going down.

Persistent rise of inflation rate during the preceding year has given Iran an unprecedented ranking in terms of inflation. According to a recent report issued by the International Monetary Fund, Iran’s inflation rate during the current Christian year was the highest among 14 countries in the Middle East and was the 4th highest inflation rate among 183 countries. The International Monetary Fund’s latest report on the outlooks of international economy shows that Iran’s inflation rate will hit up to 26 percent, which will be the highest in the Middle East and the fourth highest inflation rate among 183 countries that have been studied.

Iran has ranked first in inflation among the Middle Eastern countries at a time that the Iranian president recently announced that the inflation rate is going down. On the other hand, a report issued by the Central Bank of Iran in September showed that price index for consumer goods and services, which is known as inflation rate, had increased one percent compared to a month before. During the past months, the Central Bank of Iran had adopted disciplinary policies to control inflation rate, though those policies were aborted due to changes in management of the Central Bank and we must be ready for a new turn in monetary policies of the Central Bank of Iran. For this reason, the International Monetary Fund has announced that Iran will experience its highest inflation rate in 2008 and that it will increase further by 2014.

According to the same report, the country will experience an inflation rate of 22 percent in 2009, but it may fall to 15 percent by 2014. According to the IMF report, the highest inflation rate has been registered in Myanmar at 34.5 percent followed by Seychelles Islands in the Indian Ocean, which ranks the second with an inflation rate of 37.3 percent. Out of the Middle Eastern countries, Iran tops the inflation rate list with 26 percent followed by Yemen (17.2 percent).

The lowest inflation rate pertains to Bahrain at 4.5 percent. Iranian inflation rate increased by one percent in September to hit 23.3 percent and it was the first time in the past 2-3 years that the inflation rate increased by one percent in a matter of a month. The Inflation rate of Iran has been reported at 19.1 percent, 19.8 percent, 20.7 percent, 21.5 percent, and 22.3 percent in April, May, June, July, and August 2008. The country’s inflation rate also stood above 23 percent in the first half of 1990s and the inflation rate fell to 11.4 percent at the beginning of 2000s. However, the rate reached 15.8 percent in 2002, 15.6 percent in 2003, 15.2 percent in 2004, 12.1 percent in 2005, 13.6 percent in 2006, and finally 18.4 percent in 2007.