An Iranian official reveals the unpalatable truth:

One does not have to be a great expert to know that the Iranian economy has suffered a very severe blow in recent years. However, when it comes to numbers, the effect is even greater and that is what happened last Monday.

Golam Hussein Shafai, head of the Iranian Chamber of Commerce, said that within three years the Iranian economy had shrunk by more than half. He said that in 2017 - before the US withdrew from the nuclear deal - Iran's GDP reached $445 billion, but last year the figure had already dropped to $191 billion, a sharp decrease of 57%. According to Shafai, this decline has lowered the ranking of the Iranian economy from 26th in the world to 51st. The data he presented is even more "optimistic" if we take into account that in 2012 Iran's GDP reached about $ 600 billion.

These remarks by the head of the Chamber of Commerce express the distress of the business sector in Iran as well as his expectations from the new government of President Ibrahim Raisi to carry out internal reforms and surely to reach an agreement to lift the sanctions.