Azernews.Az

Iran absorbed $4.850 billion dollars of foreign investment in the previous calendar year which ended March 20, Deputy Finance and Economic Affairs Minister Behrouz Alishiri has said.

The amount of foreign investment in Iran reached its peak in the previous calendar year, IRNA news agency quoted Alishiri as saying.

Iran had absorbed $4.6 billion dollars of foreign investment in 2011, he added.

Alishiri had previously said that Iran needs around $1.3 trillion to materialise objectives of its fifth five-year economic development plan.

To this end, annually $300 billion should be invested, he added.

Some $7 billion worth of foreign investment plans have been approved in the current year he said, adding that foreign investments in Iran have grown by 150 per cent during the past four years.

Iran's fifth five-year economic development plan ends in 2015.

In December 2011, Alishiri said that Iran needs up to $300 billion in foreign direct investments (FDI) annually by 2015 to attain an eight per cent economic growth rate.

The International Monetary Fund said on April 16 that Iran's economy contracted by 1.9 per cent in 2012 and is expected to shrink by 1.3 per cent this year as it reels from the impact of Western sanctions.

The economy of Iran is however forecast to grow next year by 1.1 per cent, the IMF said in its annual World Economic Outlook.

The IMF said the 'macroeconomic environment is likely to remain difficult given the sharp depreciation of the currency and adverse external conditions, which would sustain inflation at relatively high levels'.

A Western ban on Iranian oil exports which came into effect in July, negatively affected the country's economy.