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SCI chief says Iran’s Gini coefficient declined year on year in March

File photo shows Iranians shopping at the Grand Bazaar market in the capital Tehran on April 20, 2020. (AFP photo)

Head of the Statistical Center of Iran (SCI) has announced that the country saw a lower income disparity in the year ending March 19, 2020.

Javad Hosseinzadeh said on Monday that the Gini coefficient, a measure widely used by economists to determine household income disparity, had declined by just less than a percentage point to stand at 39.92 percent at the end of the last calendar year.

Hosseinzadeh said Iran had reported a Gini coefficient of 40.9 percent for the year 1397 which ended March 2019.

He said an official report is due in the next few days to elaborate on how income disparity has declined in Iran despite problems faced in the economy.

The government official said, however, that an initial speculation could be the fact that Iranians on top of the income scale experienced higher inflation rates last year compared to people with lower income.

Hosseinzadeh said people at the bottom of the income scale have been less affected by inflation because prices of food and staples have risen less sharply in Iran than capital goods and non-food items sought after by people with higher income.

Studies by the SCI and other institutions show Iran has managed to tame a rampant inflation that began after the United States imposed its unilateral sanctions on the country’s sale of oil in November 2018.

A recent report by the Tehran Chamber of Commerce said that Iran’s inflation will stand at 34.2 percent at the end of the current fiscal year, ending March 2021, down from 41.1 percent recorded for the previous year.

Other reports suggest the Iranian economy would resume its positive growth in 2021 after posting lower annual contraction this year.


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