Economy
Economy—overview: Iran's economy is a mixture of central planning, state ownership of oil and other large enterprises, village agriculture, and small-scale private trading and service ventures. President KHATAMI has continued to follow the market reform plans of former President RAFSANJANI and has indicated that he will pursue diversification of Iran's oil-reliant economy although he has made little progress toward that goal. In the early 1990s, Iran experienced a financial crisis and was forced to reschedule $15 billion in debt. The strong oil market in 1996 helped ease financial pressures on Iran and allowed for Tehran's timely debt service payments. Iran's financial situation tightened in 1997 and deteriorated further in 1998 because of lower oil prices. As a result Iran has begun to cut imports and fall into arrears on its debt payments.
GDP: purchasing power parity—$339.7 billion (1998 est.)
GDP—real growth rate: -2.1% (1998 est.)
GDP—per capita: purchasing power parity?$5,000 (1998 est.)
GDP—composition by sector: agriculture: NA% industry: NA% services: NA%
Population below poverty line: 53% (1996 est.)
Household income or consumption by percentage share:
lowest 10%: NA%
highest 10%: NA%
Inflation rate (consumer prices): 24% (1998 est.)
Labor force: 15.4 million
note: shortage of skilled labor