TEHRAN, August 16 (RIA Novosti) - Iran will launch its first satellite in the nearest few days, the country's president said on Saturday.

"The first satellite created by Iranian specialists will be orbited by an Iranian carrier rocket before the end of the next week," Iranian media quoted Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as saying.

He added that economic sanctions imposed by the United States against the Islamic Republic had a "favorable effect on the country's scientific progress."

According to Ahmadinejad, over 7,000 scientific inventions have been registered in Iran over the last few years.

In February Tehran successfully launched the Explorer-1 research rocket, which is reportedly capable of carrying a satellite into orbit, and unveiled the country's first domestically built satellite, named Omid, or Hope.