As Iranian budget planners work to trim oil dependency, the country's president said Monday the Iranian economic turnaround has been miraculous.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said the inflation rate has dropped from 40 percent under his predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to around 16 percent.

"Economically speaking, as domestic and foreign opinion-makers have written to me, it has been like a miracle," he said.

For fiscal year 2013-14, the World Bank estimates the Iranian economy contracted at an annual rate of 1.7 percent. The Iranian economy emerged from recession in December, however, which was something the government said came as a result of heavy government investments in national development projects.

Though its economy is dependent on oil export revenue, the government in early January said non-oil exports from the beginning of the Iranian year, which starts in March, increased to $35 billion, or about 20 percent year-on-year.

Budget planners are working to lower the dependency on oil revenue. Three years ago, oil revenue accounted for half of the budget. Members of a budgetary planning commission said they envision oil accounting for about a quarter of the budget for the next Iranian year.

The budgetary comments came as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met with his Iranian counterpart Mohammed Jarvad Zarif in Geneva to try to hammer out differences in nuclear negotiations before a March 31 deadline.

Iran is restricted to exports of around one million barrels of oil per day under the terms of a multilateral agreement reached in November 2013.