Netanyahu vows not to let Iran rebuild nuclear capabilities

According to the Statistical Center of Iran, GDP shrank by 0.1% in the spring, ending 17 straight quarters of expansion. Industrial and mining output, which grew 5.9% last spring, fell to -0.3% this year, while agriculture plunged from +2.3% to -2.7%.

Severe water and electricity shortages disrupted production across both sectors, hitting farms and factories alike.

With the so-called snapback of international sanctions due on September 2, Iran faces a narrowing path to growth—and a worrying prospect of rising unemployment and public discontent.

Mounting debt

A separate Central Bank report shows government debt to the bank surged 63% year-on-year as of June, reflecting the administration’s failure to meet revenue targets.

Officials say only 60% of projected revenues were generated in the first five months of the year, worse than in previous years and well short of the levels needed to stabilize public finances.

Since 2018, when President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from a 2015 nuclear deal and reimposed sanctions, about a third of Iran’s annual budget has gone unrealized.

The IMF now estimates public debt at 37% of GDP and climbing. This trend is likely to accelerate if sanctions further limit oil revenues.

Record capital flight

The Central Bank also reported a net capital account of -$21.7 billion for the last fiscal year—the highest on record and 2.5 times greater than in 2020.

Capital flight has been accelerating since 2020, as businesses and households move assets abroad to escape currency depreciation and political uncertainty.

The scale of outflows highlights both a collapse in investor confidence and the inability of the banking system to hold foreign exchange inside the country.

Oil gains vanished

Iran earned $66 billion from oil, petroleum products and natural gas exports last year, a 17% increase. Including non-oil goods, total exports reached $115 billion, $27 billion more than imports.

On paper, that left the goods trade in surplus.

But the services sector recorded a record $12 billion deficit, dragging the overall trade balance for goods and services down to just $13 billion.

Combined with the $21.7 billion in capital flight, much of the hard currency generated by oil exports is effectively leaving the country.

The result is sustained pressure on Iran’s already fragile foreign reserves and further instability in the rial, which hit a record low of 1.08 million to the dollar on Thursday.

The bottom line is that Tehran’s extremely hard-gained oil cash is being wiped out by falling output, runaway debt and unprecedented capital flight—leaving the country perilously exposed just as fresh sanctions loom.

Iran and Russia signed a $25 billion agreement Friday to build four third-generation nuclear power units in Sirik, Hormozgan province, according to Iranian media.

The deal was concluded on the sidelines of the Atom 2025 exhibition in Moscow between the Iranian firm Iran Hormoz and Russia’s Rosatom Project company. Each unit is expected to generate about 1,255 megawatts, bringing the total output to 5,020 megawatts.

Earlier this month, Atomic Energy Organization chief Mohammad Eslami and Rosatom director Alexey Likhachev signed a

memorandum on cooperation over small nuclear plants in Iran.

Iran has accelerated construction at a little-understood underground complex near Natanz months after US and Israeli forces bombed its main nuclear facilities, The Washington Post reported Friday.

"Analysts who have monitored its construction estimate the halls under Pickaxe Mountain may be even deeper — between 260 and 330 feet — than those at Iran’s Fordow facility, which U.S. warplanes struck with massive earth-penetrating bombs," wrote the outlet on Friday.

The complex, known as Kuh-e Kolang Gaz La or Pickaxe Mountain, sits about a mile south of Natanz.

European states rejected a proposal from Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi to allow UN inspectors access to one bombed nuclear site and to present a plan within 45 days for handling 400 kilograms of highly enriched uranium, The Guardian reported Friday.

“The Iranian foreign ministry thought we would not go through with this, but they never came up with a serious offer. Araghchi misjudged this badly,” said a European diplomat to The Guardian.

The US dollar surged past 1.08 million rials on Iran’s open market as the prospect of renewed UN sanctions weighed heavily on the currency.

Traders attributed the sharp rise to growing uncertainty over the activation of the snapback mechanism, which would restore international restrictions lifted under the 2015 nuclear deal.