Abdul Nasser Hemmati, the former governor of the Iranian regime’s Central Bank, stated that according to official statistics, during the initial two years of the regime’s President Ebrahim Raisi‘s tenure, money printing increased by 83 percent and liquidity grew by 73 percent.
On Friday, August 13, Hemmati tweeted, “In the [presidential] debate [of 2021], you mentioned that neutralizing sanctions requires a powerful government. I have presented growth statistics to validate your statement.”
He further stated that during Raisi’s two-year presidency, the exchange rate of the dollar to the Iranian rial increased by 95 percent, the price of gold coins experienced a growth of 192 percent, and the price index surged by 114 percent.
Ebrahim Raisi claimed during his election campaigns and debates that by stopping the growth of government debt and the printing of unsupported banknotes, he would control inflation and stabilize the value of the rial.
The Central Bank has halted the publication of many economic statistics in recent months and has only reported that liquidity grew by 29 percent compared to the same period last year in Khordad (May-June) of this year.
Liquidity is the most important factor in inflation, which itself is a result of increasing government debt and the resulting pressure on the central bank to print unrestrained banknotes. Printing unsupported banknotes is also the most important factor in increasing liquidity, and this cycle has been in motion at a rapid pace in recent years.
The Central Bank of Iran did not mention the volume of liquidity in its latest report. However based on the announced 29 percent growth and the liquidity of May-June last year, which was 51,000 trillion rials, the volume of liquidity in May-June of this year has exceeded 65,000 trillion rials.
This figure was less than 40,000 trillion rials at the beginning of Ebrahim Raisi’s presidency.
Statistics from specialized currency websites also indicate that since Raisi’s presidential inauguration, the value of the Iranian rial has decreased by less than half, and the exchange rate has peaked from 220,000 rials to over 500,000 rials.
The “worse” state of Iran’s economy during the Hemmati era
Although Iran’s economic situation has been severely critical during Ebrahim Raeisi’s era, the country’s economic and financial indicators during Hemmati’s tenure as the governor of the Central Bank in previous government, led by Hassan Rouhani, were even worse than the past two years.
Hemmati was the governor of the Central Bank of Iran from August 2018 to June 2021, a period in which the exchange rate reached its peak from less than 70,000 to 220,000 rials, meaning that the Iranian rial lost two-thirds of its value.
Additionally, during this period, liquidity reached nearly 40,000 trillion rials from 16,460 trillion rials.
Various regime’s authorities, from different spectrums, have always taken power over the past four decades with promises of improving the economic situation. However, during this period, the country’s economic indicators have consistently been on the decline. Meanwhile, Iranian citizens have lost many of their cultural, social, and individual freedoms.
According to World Bank statistics, Iran’s share of the global economy has decreased from 1 percent at the beginning of the 1979 revolution to less than four-tenths of a percent in the past year.
