Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has claimed that his country’s economy has outdone Germany’s under COVID-19, drawing ridicule from Iranians on social media.
During a meeting of the National Taskforce to Combat Coronavirus on Saturday, Rouhnai said Germany is experiencing a 5.2 percent contraction and its economy is facing a negative growth.
“Germany is a developed country that is not under sanctions … our economy will certainly be in a better position [than Germany’s],” he added.
The president also hoped that Iran would achieve economic growth above zero with or without oil sales.
German Chancellor Angela “Merkel called me and asked me what I have done to maintain my country’s economy prosperous despite the sanctions and coronavirus,” said Radio Farda journalist Iliya Jazayeri mockingly.
Journalist at Iran International Reza Morad Vaisi wrote that Rouhani resorted “somehow to deception and manipulation of numbers” in comparing the German economy with the Iranian amid the coronavirus pandemic.
On Twitter and Instagram, most Iranians mocked Rouhani.
One user, Jawad, compared the Iranian currency with the euro, pointing out that the rial hit a record low against the dollar last week when in fact it breached 300,000 to a dollar for the first time on the unregulated market in Tehran.
Another user, Hossein, said: “You are laughing because of what Rouhani said, but it is the bitter truth. His statements demonstrate that he does not believe that the situation is bad and therefore he doing nothing about it. He believes everything is excellent.”
A Twitter user, Sarah, chose a picture of a depressed cleric with a black turban, and wrote in her tweet: “How did Hassan think that Iran’s economy is better than Germany’s?”
One user joked that Rouhani’s statements only reflected his financial status and that of his friends, rather than the Iranian people.
Another user said Rouhani might either not know where Germany is, or that he may be the president of Switzerland or even does not know what the economy even means.
In September, US President Donald Trump said Iran’s GDP fell 24 percent due to American pressure and sanctions. Rouhani, however, responded by affirming that it only fell 0.6 percent.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said in an April report that Iran’s economy will shrink by six percent in 2020 and the country’s economic growth will be negative for the third consecutive year.
Iran’s economic growth was negative 7.6 percent in 2019 and negative 5.4 percent in 2018, according to the IMF.
The Iranian currency lost more than 60 percent of its value, disrupting foreign trade and boosting annual inflation, which reached 41.1 percent in 2019.
The IMF also forecast that the currency will fall to 34.2 percent in 2020 and 33.5 percent in 2021. It pointed out that the Iranian government’s fiscal deficit might widen to 9.9 percent of GDP this year from a 5.7 last year.
