Monday Evening Iraq Economic News Highlights 8-14-23
Parliamentary Finance Indicates The Reluctance Of Traders To Enter The “Platform” For Selling The Dollar, And Gives Reasons For Its Rise
2023-08-14 Shafaq News/ A member of the Parliamentary Finance Committee, Moein Al-Kadhimi said, on Monday, that merchants are reluctant to enter the electronic platform to buy and sell dollars, and resort to the black market, which raises the prices of the dollar in the local markets.
Al-Kadhimi told Shafaq News agency, “The central bank’s basic sales of foreign remittances, which range daily between 150-200 million dollars, have some complexity on the part of the US Federal Bank.”
He added, “There is a reluctance of merchants to enter the electronic platform to buy the dollar and to resort to the black market to buy the dollar, which increases the demand for the dollar and thus the rise in its prices until the exchange rate of $100 reached more than 150,000 dinars.”
Al-Kazemi continued, “There is no shortage of dollars in the central bank, but rather the problem lies in the central bank’s procedures and the complications of obtaining dollars for merchants and preventing the transfer of funds to countries prohibited by the US Federal Bank, which prompts the merchant to resort to the black market and collect dollars to buy consumer goods and foodstuffs.” from abroad.”
Almost since the beginning of this year, the Central Bank of Iraq launched a working mechanism in an electronic platform and the international financial transfer system “SWIFT”, but this did not help the dollar exchange rates to stabilize in Iraq, despite the attempts of the government and the central bank to control the exchange rate in the parallel (black) markets. ).
The official exchange rate is 1320 dinars to the dollar in the Iraqi budget, but the parallel price is witnessing a strong and continuous rise in the markets of Baghdad, and in Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan Region, where it reached today, Monday, 154 thousand dinars for every $100. LINK
By An American Decision, The New Rich Are Inflaming Real Estate Prices With Their “Strange Money”… Baghdad Is A Model
Economy |Today Baghdad today – Baghdad The economic expert, Abd al-Rahman al-Mashhadani, confirmed, on Monday (August 14, 2023), that an American decision is the most important reason behind the wave of high real estate prices in Baghdad.
Al-Mashhadani told “Baghdad Today”, that “the US Federal Reserve system punished four Iraqi politicians in 2018, which prompted many politicians to transfer their financial investments from abroad to the inside.”
He added, “From this step, a wide wave of real estate purchases began in various regions of the capital, Baghdad, at a pace that led to an unprecedented wave of high prices.”
For example, in the al-Jamaa neighborhood, the price per square meter was 1,300,000 dinars, which rose to more than 3 million dinars at an average rate, according to al-Mashhadani, who also said that there are areas where prices have multiplied several times.
Black Money And Question Marks
He pointed out that “the black money, whose origin is unknown, is behind the huge wave of high prices in the capital.”
He pointed out that “there are many question marks about the identity of those who are buying and to which party they belong and how they got this huge money.”
Despite the series of economic crises that Iraq has gone through since the start of the Corona pandemic until now, this matter did not affect the real estate market, to achieve large buying and selling operations that made it the most attractive to businessmen and illegal funds that come from commodity and oil smuggling operations, drug trade and corruption operations. Administrative .
A large segment of the newly wealthy, who are the result of various economic dealings with Iraqi state institutions that are marked by many suspicions in recent times, have tended to buy real estate for large amounts in high-end neighborhoods within the capital, causing prices to rise several times during one year .
New Controls
On April 18, 2023, the Central Bank of Iraq announced its decision to supervise the sale of real estate through banks, in coordination with the real estate registration departments, to prevent money laundering
The Central Bank stated that the sale of any real estate whose value exceeds 500 million Iraqi dinars ($378,000) will be conditional on putting the money in banks and giving notice to the Real Estate Registration Department before starting the property transfer transaction.
This step will include all real estate sales and purchases during the coming months, according to the Central Bank of Iraq, which called on Iraqi banks not to facilitate these operations and not to deduct large sums from real estate dealers. LINK
A Close Associate Of The Sadrist Movement Warns The Coordination Framework Against Harnessing The Budget For Its Political Advantage
Policy 2023/08/14 Number of readings: 231 Baghdad-Iraq Today: Political analyst Issam Hussein warned against “harnessing” the budget to serve the coordination framework in the upcoming elections, in which he said that there is no political competition.
He explained in a press interview, “The upcoming elections are among the most difficult elections, because the framework has 200 trillion dinars that it can harness to win the elections through social welfare or employment,” adding, “We are facing a financial force, not a popular force, as money makes the public.
He continued, “These elections do not have any kind of political competition, but there is an arrangement of papers between the big parties with their money and the emerging parties.”
Hussein attacked the media outlets close to the coordination framework, and said that it “lost its credibility after the demonstrations in support of the Holy Qur’an when it said that al-Sadr wants to return to politics by investing in the issue of burning the Qur’an, and this is an inaccurate analysis. LINK
International Companies In The Kurdistan Region Urge Respect For Their Rights When Enacting The Oil And Gas Law
Energy Economy News _ Baghdad Today, Monday, the Kurdistan Petroleum Industry Association (IPCOR) called on the governments of Baghdad and Erbil to preserve the contractual rights in the new oil and gas law to be enacted.
The union, which represents companies including “DNO”, “Genel Energy”, “Gulf Keystone Petroleum”, “HKN Energy” and “ShaMaran Petroleum”, said in a statement received by “Al-Iqtisad News”, we urge the integration of the rights of companies in the Iraqi budget and any laws Futurism governing oil and gas in federal Iraq and the Kurdistan Region.
“It is essential for the future of the industry in these regions, and the many jobs that support them, that the outcome of the negotiations include recovery of costs and profits to which international oil companies are entitled under existing production sharing contracts,” he added.
The Kurdistan Regional Government and the Iraqi federal government held a meeting on the fifth of August to discuss drafting a new oil and gas law. During the meeting, they agreed to form a committee to draft an oil and gas law to help resolve the dispute over the constitutional rights of the Kurdistan Region over oil and revenues.
Since 2005, the Iraqi parliament has not been able to pass the draft law and the Kurdistan Region approved its own law and started its independent export through Turkey.
The dispute between Baghdad and Erbil over oil exports escalated last March, when the Court of Arbitration in Paris ruled against independent oil exports to Kurdistan under its 2007 law, prompting Turkey to halt oil exports via the Iraq-Turkish Pipeline (ITP).
So far, talks between Baghdad, Erbil and Ankara have failed to find a solution to resume oil exports. Moreover, according to the Iraqi budget law, the Kurdistan Region is required to deliver 400,000 barrels of oil per day.
A representative of the “IPCOR” consortium said in a statement to “Standard & Poor’s” that the oil companies “want to guarantee their contractual rights, including cost recovery and oil entitlement, and protect them in the discussions between Erbil and Baghdad.”
“The international oil companies in Kurdistan must be compensated for the real costs, just as they are in federal Iraq. Our investments have fully funded the entire sector and there are solutions that will guarantee future foreign investment in the Iraqi energy sector,” he added.
He pointed out that “the PSC (professional standards) model used in the Kurdistan Region has a competitive investment structure that is widely used in oil regions around the world.”
He continued, “Within the framework of the security companies of the Kurdistan Region, the international oil companies bear all the financial risks, and in the event of success, the Kurdistan Region retains the majority share of the reward.”
“To provide international oil companies with confidence in their contractual right to recover costs and receive profit payments from successful projects, the Kurdistan Company PSC model is governed by English law, with disputes settled through international arbitration at the London Court of International Arbitration,” said the Epicor consortium.
The oil companies also said that it would not be possible for the Kurdistan Region to provide 400,000 barrels of oil per day to Baghdad, without the international oil companies operating in the Kurdistan Region.
“To achieve this, the Kurdistan Region will depend on production from fields run by the International Olympic Committee,” he said.
“Despite the political, security and geological challenges in the region, the sector operated by the ICRC has developed from almost nothing 15 years ago to produce about 250,000 barrels of oil per day,” he added.
“As (oil) the most important industry in Kurdistan by far, the oil and gas sector now provides tens of thousands of high-quality jobs directly through the IOCs themselves as well as indirectly through service companies and contractors and in the communities surrounding our operations, homes and offices,” he added.
Moreover, due to the cessation of oil exports, foreign companies operating in the Kurdistan Region had to implement cost-cutting measures, which led to staff layoffs.
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Al-Nusairi: The Battle For The Stability Of The Exchange Rate With Speculators In The Black Market Will End With The Recovery Of The Dinar
Al-Nusairi: The battle for the stability of the exchange rate with speculators in the black market w 16095
Money and business Economy News _ Baghdad Samir Al-Nusairi, advisor to the Association of Iraqi Private Banks, confirmed today, Monday, that the battle led by the government and the central bank with speculators to control the stability of the dinar exchange rate against the dollar on the black market will end with the gradual recovery of the dinar and that the rise in the exchange rate is temporary, and will inevitably decrease back to the target rate of The central bank in Iraq, because the dollar that is traded in, if it does not come from the central bank, then its source is illegitimate and is held accountable by Iraqi law for its negative effects on the national economy.
Al-Nusairi said in an interview with “Al-Iqtisad News”, that “one of the most prominent reasons for the dollar’s rise is the news of depriving 14 banks of dealing in US dollars and what the big speculators did in withdrawing cash dollars and the manipulation of unauthorized exchanges with exchange rates.” In addition, some small retailers did not enter the electronic platform for external transfer.
And he added, “Some media outlets and analysts exacerbated the confusion of the market by amplifying unreal and incomplete data and information, as well as websites and microbes that announce daily the exchange rate on the black market despite the warnings of the Central Bank and its clarification by its statements issued successively that the offer of foreign currency is available for all requests submitted to the electronic platform by companies.”
And merchants and businessmen, and that the platform is the only approved system for external transfers, which achieves the real guarantee for the safety of external financial transactions in accordance with international standards, which guarantee the arrival of transfers to the final beneficiary.
Al-Nusairi pointed out that “the Central Bank follows up and monitors the markets in cooperation with the concerned government agencies, and takes urgent measures to address the situation and stop all actions counter to harming the national economy.” In particular, limiting illegal trade through unofficial outlets.
And he continued, “The Central Bank is working to diagnose and study the causes and obstacles to entering the electronic platform, delaying some transfers, and setting up procedures that facilitate merchants’ conduct of their business smoothly and easily, and taking possible flexibility to accelerate external transfers in banks, the Central Bank, and in the relevant international banking agencies.”
Al-Nusairi noted that “the measures will inevitably result in a decrease in the exchange rate on the black market for the illegal dollar, and that the Central Bank is currently working on adopting new mechanisms and work contexts to control monetary stability, and their results will appear soon.”
We urge all government agencies, wholesalers, and businessmen to support the Iraqi dinar and deal with it in all local monetary activities and transactions, as it is strong and covered by foreign monetary reserves that exceed $113 billion, and that its purchasing power is gradually recovering. In addition to being an essential pillar of national sovereignty.
Views 38 08/14/2023 – https://economy-news.net/content.php?id=35658
