Azerbaijan, Baku, Oct.22/ Trend F.Milad/
Iran's economic growth rate in the Iranian year of 1390 (ends March 19) stood at 4.67 per cent, the head of the Statistical Centre of Iran Adel Azar said, IRIB News reported.
Many Iranian economists however predicted the nation's economic growth at 0.5 per cent.
Hossein Raghfar, a renowned Iranian university lecturer and economist also said on Sunday that decision making bodies such as parliament know that the country's economic growth in the past years was no higher than three per cent.
Raghfar also said that some 25-32 per cent of Iranians are under an absolute poverty line.
"In the past three years the number of people under absolute poverty line has been increased by two per cent each year," the ILNA News Agency quoted him as saying.
It is reckoned that Iran will manage to bring its high inflation lower and return to growth next year despite Western sanctions over its nuclear programme, according to September projections from the International Monetary Fund.
The IMF forecasts which also include a small trade surplus this year and next, suggest that although sanctions are damaging Iran by cutting its oil exports, they are not likely to cause a collapse of its economy.
However, much of the IMF analysis is based on statistics provided by the Iranian government which private economists say may not be reliable and most of the report was prepared before Iran's currency the rial, plunged by about a third against the dollar in 10 days through Oct. 2.
In its semi-annual World Economic Outlook, the IMF forecast Iran's gross domestic product would shrink 0.9 per cent this year after a two per cent growth in 2011.
Its prediction for this year was a downgrade from a forecast of 0.4 percent growth in its last report in April, but the IMF projected GDP would expand next year by 0.8 percent.
IMF said Iran's current account, its balance of trade in goods and services, is expected to enjoy a surplus of 3.4 percent of GDP this year and 1.3 percent next year.
That would be a big drop from a surplus of 12.5 percent in 2011, but the forecast still suggests it may not face a crippling balance of payments crisis due to the sanctions.