Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, underlined the role of scientific growth in making the country’s powerful in political and economic terms.

According to IRNA, he made the remarks in a meeting with hundreds of faculty members and researchers whom he hosted for Iftar to discuss their viewpoints on different issues, especially scientific and academic topics.

Ayatollah Khamenei said the scientific progress is very important for the country and Islamic Republic system, noting that the world’s accredited information dissemination centers have acknowledged Iran’s scientific growth despite their hostility towards Iran.

He pointed to facts and figures released by international statistical centers, saying that according to this statistics, the country’s scientific achievement have seen a 16-fold growth as compared to the period before, and the rate of scientific growth in Iran is 13 times more than the world’s average growth rate.

The Leader said that according to the international statistics centers, if Iran continues to make scientific progress at the current rate, it will attain the fourth place in the world within next five years.

He took note of the fact that since the victory of the Islamic Revolution in 1979 the number of universities along with the number of students as well as the number of research faculties have considerably increased in Iran, which is further proof of the country’s scientific progress.