Fars News, the outlet of the Revolutionary Guard, is often an EA source for propaganda declaring that All-Is-Well with the Iranian economy.
Occasionally, it offers a bonus with an attempt that goes wrong — if you make it to the bottom of the article.
Today is one of those days.
The outlet headlines, “Iran Exports $17.9bln of Non-Oil Products in 6 Months“, following up with a series of numbers which are supposed to show triumph over “the US-led western sanctions imposed against the country”.
The article concludes, “According to officials, Iran’s non-oil exports exceeded $41bln in the last Iranian year (ended March 20).”
So All is Well — until you do some basic maths.
Iran’s exports of $17.9 billion over the last six months project an annual total of $35.8 billion for 2013/14.
Iran’s exports in 2012/13 were more than $41.0 billion.
So Tehran’s success this year in non-oil exports is actually a drop of almost 13%.
Oops.
