Finance Committee: The Iraqi economy needs to “restructure” … to achieve additional resources possible with these mechanisms
Baghdad today – The Finance Committee of the Iraqi Parliament, Ahmed Al-Saffar, believed today, Thursday, that the Iraqi economy needs to be completely restructured, noting that the measures of the government and parliament are temporary solutions.
The decision of the Finance Committee Ahmed Al-Saffar told (Baghdad today), “The solutions proposed by the Ministry of Finance, the government and even Parliament, regarding internal and external borrowing, are immediate solutions that solve the crisis for a month or two,” noting that “Iraq needs a complete restructuring of the Iraqi economy and policies Financial and economic. ”
He added, “We must get rid of the rentier economy unilaterally, meaning that the sources of the economy are diversified and the productive sectors that are producing goods and services are energized, to raise from the gross domestic product: the sectors of agriculture, industry, trade, tourism, transport, transportation, and infrastructure.”
He pointed out, “We must use the agricultural sector correctly and scientifically, and with all the requirements of a sound agricultural sector in Iraq from fertile land, water suitable for cultivation and manpower, we need a plan.”
He pointed out that “in the year 2003 the exploited agricultural areas were up to 48 million dunums, and Iraq had almost reached a level of semi-self-sufficiency, now the cultivated areas currently range from 12 to 14 million dunums only,” stressing, “and as a result of that reliance was placed on import In everything in Iraq. ”
He explained that “the import turn leads to a deficit in the Iraqi trade balance and the exit of the hard currency from Iraq while there are alternatives to import.”
He added that “the agricultural sector is the other in Iraq is weak, so we need a sector that depends on agriculture, and also resort to food industries, led to the consumption of large amounts of Iraqi hard currency and go abroad.”
He stressed that “the adoption of simple technology with simple capital, through which we can build medium-sized factories (medium industry), which is called the economy, link the two sectors together, the industry benefits agriculture and agriculture benefits the industry and leads to an integrated production that covers the Iraqi market and exports them abroad.”
And that “the issue needs a comprehensive economic plan, from allocating funds to move all economic sectors and all the requirements that exist, and we only lack the factor of management and regulation.”
He added that “the money that comes out because of the import is large, as the central bank sometimes sells an average of 200 million dollars a day in exchange for imports.”
He continued, “Import leads to the loss of hard currency abroad and the deficit of the trade balance, and the realization of benefit to the countries from which it is imported, increasing the unemployment rate and weakening the national product.”
And the Central Bank of Iraq decided, on Tuesday (30 June 2020), to reduce the interest of loans in order to support the economic and productive sectors, in light of the outbreak of the Corona virus.
The media office of the bank stated in a statement received (Baghdad today), that “with the continued economic repercussions caused by the Corona pandemic and the restrictions imposed by it that curbed economic activity in most of the productive and service sectors, and the decline in oil revenues, the Central Bank of Iraq decided to enhance the liquidity of existing projects, which were Funding it from the (one trillion) initiative in the amount of (5) million dinars for those who wish to do so, with the guarantees of the same project in exchange for administrative commissions and without interest.
The statement added, “The central bank directed banks and guarantor companies to reduce interest from (4.8%) to (3.5%) for borrowers within the 1-20 million dinar segment and reduce bank loan interest from the 21 million to 1 billion dinar segment after it was (6.3%) ) To become (4%). ”
He pointed out that “the central bank also directed banks, taking into account projects related to the tourism, hotels and restaurants sectors whose recovery may be prolonged by studying postponing their premiums for a longer period until they recover from the pandemic crisis.”