To achieve sustainable growth and bridge gaps in employment and living standards, efforts must be directed toward the attainment of a single-digit inflation rate, an elusive target, according to Iran’s authorities and prominent economists who spoke at the 25th Annual Conference on Monetary and Exchange Rate Policies in Tehran on May 31-June 1.

President Hassan Rouhani and his pragmatic economic team feel proud these days of taming inflation to about 15%. However, the officials admit that they will have a long, challenging way ahead to bring general price level of goods and services down further, as they will need to consider "totally different" tools from those so far used to curb 40% inflation of October 2013.

“Inflation has already reached its 'hard core' and maintaining fiscal and monetary discipline won’t be enough to keep it down,” Ali Tayebnia, the minister of economic affairs and finance, said in an address to the two-day event dubbed "Stable Single-Digit Inflation: Policy and Institutional Requirements."

“A 5% inflation rate is ideal for our economy if we want to be among the top 100 nations having single-digit inflation,” the minister added.