Al-Monitor - Iran’s president said his country’s economy is in a comparatively better shape than the US and European states' ones when it comes to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is praising his government’s economic performance in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, which continues to rage across Iran with alarming mortality rates.

“Iran’s economy has proven more resilient,” Rouhani said Aug. 4, drawing a comparison with European countries and the United States, where he said gross domestic product (GDP) has fallen by 10% and 30% respectively. The Iranian president, however, did not offer similar statistics on his government’s economic record. However, in June, Economy Minister Farhad Dezhpasand said the coronavirus had cost Iran 15% of GDP.

At a meeting of the government’s economic coordination board in Tehran, Rouhani accused Iran’s enemies of projecting a “blackened image” of his government’s response to the pandemic by spreading “rumors and false statistics” with the aim of producing “public disillusionment.” He described this as “psychological warfare” advanced by an enemy that has already faced failure in its “economic war, a term the Iranian leadership uses in reference to the US “maximum pressure” policy and sanctions regime against Tehran. Rouhani also unleashed a ferocious attack against critics, who continue to question his government’s performance during the pandemic, linking them to the same campaign orchestrated by the “enemy.”
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