The Ministerial Council for the Economy issues new decisions
The Ministerial Council for Economy issued today, Monday (June 29, 2026), a number of decisions aimed at regulating the work of border crossings and unifying customs and tax procedures between the federal government and the Kurdistan Regional Government, in order to enhance revenue management and reduce unofficial crossings.
The Media Office of the Ministerial Council for the Economy stated in a statement that “the Minister of Finance and Acting Minister of Planning, Faleh Al-Sari, held a session in the presence of the Ministers of Trade, Industry, Labor and Social Affairs, the Secretary-General of the Council of Ministers, the Governor of the Central Bank, the Vice President of the National Investment Commission, the Advisor to the Prime Minister for Legal Affairs, and the Director-General of the Economic Department in the Ministry of Oil.
He added that “the session witnessed the hosting of a delegation from the Kurdistan Regional Government headed by the Minister of Finance of the region, and included a number of senior officials concerned with the financial and customs files, in addition to the head of the Border Ports Authority, the Undersecretary of the Federal Ministry of Finance, the Directors General of the Customs and Tax Authorities, and representatives of the ASYCUDA system implementation project.”
The council discussed “the results of the work of the joint committees between Baghdad and Erbil regarding the unification of customs and tax procedures at border crossings, and the mechanisms for implementing the ASYCUDA system, as well as the technical and administrative obstacles facing the implementation of the project.”
Following a discussion of the technical report submitted by the joint team, the Council decided to “form a joint committee headed by the Federal Border Ports Authority, which will conduct a comprehensive survey of the border strip and visit the unofficial ports and crossings, and prepare a report that includes an assessment of the ports that meet the legal and technical conditions for converting them into official ports, while closing the ports that do not meet the conditions and assigning the Federal Border Forces Command to implement this.”
The Council tasked the Federal Ministry of Finance, in coordination with the Ministry of Finance in the Kurdistan Region, with preparing a unified booklet of customs exemptions and allowances, in preparation for submitting it to the Council of Ministers for approval and dissemination to all border crossings, in order to ensure the standardization of procedures.
The council also decided to “submit joint proposals to the Cabinet regarding the mechanism for collecting revenues at the border crossings of the Kurdistan Region, in order to strengthen the unification of financial resource management and consolidate coordination between the federal government and the region.”
The Ministerial Council for the Economy affirmed that “these measures are part of the efforts for economic and administrative reform, developing the management of border crossings, and unifying customs and tax systems, which will enhance transparency, raise the efficiency of revenue collection, and regulate trade between Iraq and neighboring countries.”
Burathanews.com