Iran: IMF sees a positive outlook in 2023

Drawing a positive outlook for the Iranian economy in 2023, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has predicted that 10 major indicators of the Iranian economy would experience growth and improvement in the forthcoming year as compared to 2022.

IMF has announced that Iran's foreign currency reserves are more than US$120 billion, but it claims that Iran has access to only a small part of these reserves due to the US sanctions.

According to the IMF data, Iran's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) based on the purchasing power index will grow by US$91 billion or two percent in 2023 to reach US$1.7 trillion.

Meanwhile, Iran's GDP per capita is also expected to increase by US$865 based on the purchasing power index to reach US$19,528 in 2023 from US$18,663 in 2022.

IMF sees Iran's GDP excluding oil grow by 2% in 2023, and the growth of the country’s economy including oil will be 2.1% this year.

The inflation rate in Iran is predicted to be 40% in 2023, registering no change as compared to 2022.

The International Monetary Fund expects the rate of the country’s liquidity growth to slow down in 2023. The liquidity growth that reached 47.5% of GDP in 2022 will decrease to 45.6% in 2023.

The budget deficit of the Iranian government in 2023 will reach 6% of GDP, which is 1.8% higher than the figure for 2022.

The Iranian government’s total revenues will not change in 2023 as compared to the previous year. The Iranian government’s income in 2023 is estimated to be 8.3% of the GDP, registering no change compared to the previous year. However, the government's non-oil incomes will increase from 7.4% of GDP in 2022 to 7.5% of GDP in 2023.

Based on the IMF data, the downward trend of the Iranian government's gross debt will continue in 2023 to settle at 31.9% of the GDP this year.

The fund also predicts Iran's current account balance to be US$30.2 billion in 2023. Iran's current account balance in 2022 is estimated at more than US$32 billion.

Based on the referred data, Iran's foreign currency reserves increase by more than US$11.4 billion in 2023 and reach US$42.2 billion. Iran's available foreign currency reserves in 2022 are estimated at US$30.8 billion.

According to the estimate of the International Monetary Fund, Iran's foreign debt in 2022 will be equal to 0.5% of the GDP and it is expected that this figure will remain the same in 2023.