Iran’s economy is expected to shrink by 1.5 percent in 2018 and by another 3.6 percent in 2019, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said in the October update of its World Economic Outlook, heavily downgrading the Islamic Republic’s growth prospects with the return of the U.S. sanctions. The IMF downgraded the economic growth forecasts for the whole region of the Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, compared to the April edition of the World Economic Outlook, reflecting “to an important extent the worsening of growth prospects for Iran, following the reimposition of US sanctions,” the IMF said in the October outlook. Iran’s economy is now forecast to contract this year and especially in 2019, by 3.6 percent, “on account of reduced oil production, before returning to modest positive growth in 2020–23,” according to the IMF. In 2017, Iran’s economy grew 3.7 percent. Consumer prices in Iran, which rose […]