World Bank agrees to lend to Iraq after conducting financial reforms



12/19/2015

(Independent) .. The Ministry of Finance confirmed the approval of the Executive Directors of the World Bank Council to provide a loan of $ 1.2 billion for Iraq.

A statement issued by the ministry, today, it sought for several months to get a loan for budget support from the World Bank to implement the Budget Law No. (2) for the year 2015, which authorized the Minister of Finance the power to borrow from the World Bank.

The statement noted that the beginning when he met with the Deputy Minister of Finance and World Bank President Hafez Ghanem in Baghdad the end of the month of April and during which the agreement on the presence of a technical delegation from the World Bank to Baghdad.

He met with World Bank experts, officials in the Ministry of Finance in Baghdad team beginning the month of May 2015, were identified financial reform package to be taken, and subsequently a meeting was held in Beirut the end of June 2015, it was attended by Farid Belhaj head of the Middle East and North Evrikieumajmuah World Bank experts and representatives from the Finance and Planning, oil and Alkahraaba and Labour and Social Affairs of the Iraqi Central Bank and the ministries.

He said that during the meetings to prepare Msnovh reforms and to identify those who carried out at the end of last September has been the implementation of all required reforms and with the help of the Office of the Prime Minister to the fact that some of the reforms require the approval of the Prime Minister.

He added The statement in the context of efforts for the loan had the Minister of Finance a series of meetings with officials at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, as well as officials in the US Treasury Department during the Annual Meetings of the Bank and IMF in Lima, Peru in the ninth and tenth of the month of October 2015,

He noted me that in the meantime, the World Bank asked the Ministry of Finance to close the financial gap and reach an agreement with the International Monetary Fund as a condition for the loan so held meetings with the International Monetary Fund experts at the beginning of November under the chairmanship of the Minister of Finance and the presence of the governor of the Iraqi Central Bank and Financial Adviser to the President Ministers and representatives from the Finance and Planning and oil ministries and the Central Bank of Iraq and the Office of Financial Supervision was made ​​to reach an agreement with the international progress Fund and prove lack of financial gap between public expenditure and public revenue and finance.

He said that due to efforts in sustaining public spending and provide the necessary financing but the Fund request a reduction public spending by one trillion dinars in the 2016 budget, and here there was a need for a new dialogue at the beginning of the month of December has been conducting this dialogue through a closed telephone circuit between the representatives of the International Monetary Fund and representatives of the Ministry of Finance and the Office of the Prime Minister and successful this has been the signing of the loan agreement On December 18, 2015, by Lukman Faili Iraq's ambassador in Washington on behalf of the Government of the Republic of Iraq, and Iraq gets the loan amount during the next few days and by the end of this year. (end)

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