The Prime Minister’s Financial Advisor, Mazhar Mohammed Salih, defined today, Saturday, the vision of the government’s program regarding the economic model, and while indicating that it will guide investment decisions to achieve their goals, stressing that the government of Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani has established a roadmap for the work of the economic model in Iraq.

Salih said: “The economic model is a mathematical model used to represent the economy and analyze the behavior of various economic factors, as these models are used to understand how economic elements interact,”

indicating that “at the level of the philosophy of the government’s program for Iraq, the basics of modeling the Iraqi economy were launched from an important vision based on the principle of analyzing the entire economy, taking into account the overall variables, most notably the basics of development and growth in the gross domestic product and imposing stability and effective operation of the joints of the national economy and the level of its interconnections.”

He added that “the current digital life helps to use computing to conduct simulation experiments to understand the potential effects of various economic policies and adopt optimal paths from them,” stressing that “Iraq has established in its government program a practical foundation and a roadmap for the work of the economic model for Iraq through the development path strategy, since the beginning of the government of Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani.”

He pointed out that “the state of economic imbalance and its severe unilateralism has always required thinking about the future of the economy through an approach based on generating an alternative sector that leads the national economy,” explaining that “the development path program is an academic viewpoint,

and what the German economic thinker Albert Hirschmann presented in his famous book (Economic Development Strategy) published in 1958, in combating the state of imbalance and economic unilateralism with a theory based on economic development weight, and a leader for the economy that provides a high degree of backward and forward sectoral interconnections and high interactivity that achieves sustainable growth and restores balance in the long term for the national economy.”

He pointed out that “this theory emphasizes in its model the need to invest in strategic sectors with a specific high priority instead of investing in all sectors at once,” adding that “according to this theory, other sectors will develop automatically over time,

and from this standpoint the idea of ​​the economic model for the future of Iraq in prosperity and diversity was born, which is undoubtedly based on a strategy for the overall economy based on the development path.”

Saleh noted that “this development strategy and the economic model that drives the macroeconomic variables, did not separate from it the vision of partnership between the state and the private sector and the principles of the social market within the data of the five-year national development plan and its objectives that were recently launched,” concluding his speech by saying that “the economic model or model for Iraq that we aspire to establish will provide the predictive foundations for evaluating economic policies and directing investment decisions to achieve their specific objectives in an optimal manner.”   https://www.mawazin.net/Details.aspx?jimare=253034

150 Thousand For Every 100 Dollars.. Stability Of The Dollar Exchange Rate In Baghdad

  Mawazine News publishes today, Saturday, the exchange rates of the dollar against the Iraqi dinar in local markets.

– Selling 150,000 dinars for every 100 dollars.

– Buying 148,000 dinars for every 100 dollars.

https://www.mawazin.net/Details.aspx?jimare=253015

Central Bank Of Iraq Announces Growth Of Electronic Payment From 800 Billion To 2 Trillion Dinars

 The Governor of the Central Bank of Iraq announced on Saturday a record increase in electronic payment operations from 800 billion to 2 trillion dinars in one year, noting that government payments reached 912 billion dinars during July 2024.

This came during his participation in a specialized workshop on accelerating the transition to electronic payment, organized by the “Osool” Foundation for Economic Development and Sustainable Development, followed by Shafak News Agency.

Al-Alaq said during his speech at the workshop that the Central Bank of Iraq works side by side with the government program and the Prime Minister’s direction in supporting electronic payment, and we are proud of what we have achieved so far,

indicating that in 2023, the amounts processed through the national switchboard witnessed a significant increase, reflecting the development of the infrastructure and the expansion in the use of electronic payment channels and the impact of the campaign launched by the Prime Minister to activate electronic payment operations in general, and in the government sector in particular.

He added that these upward trends continued to develop in 2024, as the amounts processed in the national switchboard systems reached more than 2 trillion Iraqi dinars in July alone, compared to 800

billion dinars in the same month of 2023, and became 1 trillion dinars in January 2024, and government payments witnessed an additional increase, reaching 912 billion Iraqi dinars last July compared to 287 million dinars in the same month of 2023.

Al-Alaq indicated that payments at fuel stations in Baghdad alone increased significantly, recording more than 44 billion dinars in July of this year, compared to 183 million dinars in July of 2023, and 4.5 billion dinars in December 2023.

Al-Alaq revealed a huge increase in the number of POS points of sale to reach more than 50 thousand points of sale this year compared to approximately 11 thousand POS points of sale at the beginning of 2023, and thousands of them in government institutions after It was zero before the campaign was launched in June 2023.

Al-Alaq expressed his hope that government institutions would adopt the establishment of specialized units in electronic payment technologies to work on following up and developing this important aspect.https://www.mawazin.net/Details.aspx?jimare=253011

Oil Equality.. Is Iraq Outside Profit And Loss Calculations?

Money and business  Economy News – Baghdad  Observers have warned of the fluctuations witnessed by the American economy and their repercussions on the global economy, especially on energy markets, but they confirmed at the same time that oil price indicators are still stable despite these fluctuations, and Iraq is outside the calculations of profit and loss in the fluctuations of the oil market, due to its reliance on the rentier economy.

While economic circles around the world were surprised by the sharp fluctuations and declines in the US stock market amid a wave of panic over fears of a possible recession in the world’s largest economy, the US economy, the main financial indicators witnessed a decline, including the Dow Jones Industrial Average of major US industrial companies, by about 1,000 points at once.”

Oil prices fell slightly in early Asian trading on Friday, but were set to post gains of more than 3 percent this week after U.S. jobs data eased demand concerns and continued concerns about a widening conflict in the Middle East.

Brent crude futures were down 9 cents, or 0.11 percent, at $79.07 a barrel by 0030 GMT, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were down 1 cent at $76.09 a barrel.

However, both crudes are on track to post gains of more than 3 percent on a weekly basis.

Gaza and Israel

Israeli forces intensified air strikes on the Gaza Strip on Thursday, killing at least 40 people, Palestinian medics said, as they brace for the possibility of a wider war in the region.

“Crude oil continued to recover from its latest slide as markets focused on escalating geopolitical risks,” said Daniel Hynes, analyst at ANZ.

Libya’s National Oil Corporation also provided some support when it declared force majeure at the Sharara oil field, saying the field’s production was being gradually reduced due to protests.

Prices rose after data showed the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell more than expected last week, suggesting that fears of a deteriorating labor market were overblown.

The dollar rose after the jobs data. A stronger dollar typically reduces oil prices because buyers using other currencies have to pay more for dollar-denominated crude.

The financial and economic advisor to the Prime Minister, Mazhar Mohammed Saleh, expected oil prices to recover after a rapid decline in global markets in recent days.

Huge losses

Saleh said, “The drop in oil prices will cause a huge loss in the investments of American oil companies operating in the field of extracting shale oil if global oil prices fall below $70 per barrel, which will cause their operations to falter.”

He pointed out that “the US monetary policy is expected to inevitably move towards an expansionary policy to confront the current recession, led by the quantitative easing policy through the possibility of the Federal Reserve reducing interest and stimulating liquidity to confront the challenges of the deterioration of the US economy and provide the necessary protection for financial investors in particular against the collapse of financial markets, including futures markets operating with crude oil contracts.”

Saleh explained that “all of these factors will shorten the paths of the oil asset cycle’s decline so that the oil markets can recover, if that cycle occurs and leads to a decline in oil market prices.”

What’s behind the rise?

Oil prices rose to $79 a barrel after Brent crude fell to a seven-month low on Monday, tracking a decline in global stock markets.

Futures are set to snap a four-week losing streak, with Libya’s largest field out of action, U.S. inventories falling for a sixth week and Ukrainian incursions into Russia exacerbating the upside.

Meanwhile, jet fuel demand is improving in China, a rare bright spot after months of bearish signals, including data this week that showed the world’s biggest crude importer took in the fewest barrels in almost two years in July. https://economy-news.net/content.php?id=46121

Central Bank Governor: We Have A Broad Transformation Program Towards Digitization

 The Governor of the Central Bank of Iraq, Ali Al-Alaq, confirmed the existence of a broad transformation program towards digitization and the use of electronic payment tools.

Al-Alaq said in an interview followed by “Al-Eqtisad News”, “There is a broad transformational program towards digitization and the use of electronic payment tools in a way that enhances this large program, and today we are witnessing developments reflected by the real numbers of the use of electronic payment tools, whether in the public or private sector.”

Al-Alaq added: “We are now providing the broad infrastructure to enable all financial services tools and products to play their role,” considering that “this plays a very important role in our national economy and also in investing the existing energies, whether material or human.”

The Governor of the Central Bank of Iraq pointed out that “there is an integration of roles between electronic payment companies, banks and the Central Bank in a continuous manner in order to proceed with this major project.”

He stressed, “We will reflect the size of the development in numbers in the past period and how the growth has become significant using these tools.”

In June 2023, the Central Bank of Iraq announced the entry into force of Iraqi Cabinet Resolution No. (23044) for the year 2023, which is to increase the number of electronic payment devices in government institutions and the private sector to enhance the culture of electronic payment and collection, and reduce the use of paper money in collection and commercial transactions.