Central Bank Governor Answers Bessent: Yearly Liquidity Growth Eased From 56.4 to 51.6 Percent by Shahrivar

Abdolnaser Hemmati, governor of the Central Bank of Iran, responded on Sunday, 19 Mehr 1405 (11 October 2026), to remarks the same day by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent about "money printing" in Iran and a repeated claim that Iran's economy would collapse. Hemmati said that, by Bessent's own promise, Sunday was the last day of a two-week deadline for the collapse of Iran's economy, and that instead of discussing the outcome of that promise he was now talking about printing money.

According to Hemmati, the latest figures published by the central bank show liquidity growth over the year to Shahrivar 1405 reached 51.6 percent, down from 56.4 percent in Khordad 1405, a drop of 4.8 percentage points in three months. Liquidity growth in Shahrivar itself hit its lowest value, 1.3 percent. He added that the central bank's intervention in the currency market halted the expectations-driven rise in the exchange rate and even reversed it.

Hemmati stressed that economic pressure is real and felt by the public, but that economic collapse is proven neither by sanctions and threats nor by political statements; economic reality should be judged by measurable indicators. The figures are the central bank's own and were not independently verified for this report.