Global growth has slowed sharply and the risk of financial stress in emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs) is intensifying amid elevated global interest rates, according to the World Bank’s latest Global Economic Prospects report.
Global growth is projected to decelerate from 3.1% in 2022 to 2.1% in 2023. In EMDEs other than China, growth is set to slow to 2.9% this year from 4.1% last year. These forecasts reflect broad-based downgrades.
However, Iran’s economy, over the last two years, has started to rebound, supported by a recovery in services post-pandemic, increased oil sector activity, and accommodating policy action, the World Bank reported.
The report added that bilateral currency exchange, barter, and other indirect payment channels are increasingly used to settle international transactions as most assets abroad have become inaccessible due to sanctions
Economic activity has also adjusted to sanctions, including through exchange rate depreciation which helped domestically produced tradable goods to become price competitive internationally, said the report.
The decline in oil exports has prompted additional processing of crude oil and hydrocarbons that have then been exported as petrochemicals, added the source.
Under sanctions, trade has pivoted further towards neighboring countries and China, and bilateral currency exchange, barter, and other indirect payment channels are increasingly used to settle international transactions as most assets abroad have become inaccessible due to sanctions, the report added.
The World Bank predicted that the Iranian economy grows by two percent in 2023.
The country’s growth is expected to be 2.0 percent in 2024, the WB added.
Iran ranks second in the world for natural gas reserves and fourth for proven crude oil reserves, according to the World Bank.
The Energy Institute (EI) figures show that Iran exported nearly 19 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas in 2022.
The data from EI's 72nd edition of the Statistical Review of World Energy showed that the figure, which equals 51.8 million cubic meters per day of exports, accounted for 2.5% of the world's natural gas trade through pipelines last year.
Iran's natural gas exports rose 9% year on year in 2022, said the report.
The figure is more than 4 times the average growth rate in the global trade of natural gas, added the EI.
Iran's exports to Central Asian states, the Caucasus, and Russia surged by 18% in the Iranian calendar year 1401 (ending on March 20) compared to the previous year, according to the director of the Department of Central Asia, Russia, and Caucasus at Iran’s Trade Promotion Organization (TPO).
Rahmatollah Khormali said that Iran's exports to the three regions reached $3.2 billion in the year to March.
Khormali added that Iran's exports to these regions had increased by 40% in the calendar year 1400 compared to the previous year.
Recently, the Vice President of the Iran and Africa Merchants Club Ruhollah Latifi has said that since the beginning of President Raeisi's administration, Iran's exports to Africa have seen a 100% hike.
According to the Turkish Statistical Institute, the Iran-Turkey trade has registered a 15-percent rise in 2022 compared to 2021.
The value of trade between the two neighbors reached $6.42 billion in 2022, while the figure stood at $5.59 billion in the preceding year.
Iran exported $1.134 million of non-oil commodities to Algeria in the first three months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 21-June 21) to register a 109 percent rise year on year, according to the Vice Chairman of Iran-Africa Merchants Club, Ruhollah Latifi.
The latest data released by the Agriculture Ministry show that Iran exported 2.07 million tons of agricultural and food products worth $1.3 billion during the first quarter of the current Iranian year (March 21-June 21).
Reported by Tohid Mahmoudpour