Zebari: the collapse of the price of oil will push the region to re-stake his position on the budget

2016-01-28 22:57:04 | (Voice of Iraq) - Baghdad

Expect the finance minister, Hoshyar Zebari, on Thursday, that the collapse of the price of oil will push the region to re-stake his position on the budget, noting that Iraq is ready to discuss the agreement it seems elusive to cut oil production.

Zebari said in an interview conducted by the Reuters news agency that "the collapse of the price of oil will pay the Government of the region to re-examine its position to take its share of the budget."

The collapse of the price to the worsening economic troubles of the Kurdish region, which began in early 2014 when Baghdad has reduced funding to the region because of its crude exports separately.

The Baghdad government has kept open the option of the Kurdistan Regional Government to take its share amounting to 17 percent of the budget if it agreed to halt independent oil sales and after that blocked due to budget payments to the region last year.

Zebari said that "the government will seek to cut spending and increase domestic borrowing to cover the budget deficit," ruling out "the devaluation of the dinar."

Meanwhile, Zebari said "Iraq wants to participate in the meetings called by Venezuela to raise oil prices, which have tumbled to the lowest level in 12 years near $ 30 a barrel," stressing that "Iraq is a founding member of OPEC stressed and therefore we will participate certainly the idea is to cut production actually to influence the price of oil. "

Zebari said that "the decision to cut production must be collectively otherwise you will not be feasible does not seem that there is a consensus with the exception of Venezuela and Algeria," pointing out that "not only Algeria and Venezuela have shown their support for production cuts while Saudi Arabia does not support the Member Organization and Russia, a producer of non-OPEC this procedure".

Oil prices fell gradually during the past year to reach the beginning of 2016 to less than $ 30 per barrel, which reflected negatively on budget revenues, bringing the deficit for the current year to 24 trillion dinars.


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