Saturday Morning Iraq Economic News Highlights 3-18-23
Mesopotamia Starts Selling The Dollar To The Traveler At $2,000 Tomorrow, Sunday
Economy News-Baghdad Today, Saturday, the Rafidain Bank announced the approval of the share of selling the dollar to the traveler at a rate of 2000 dollars, starting tomorrow, Sunday, according to the instructions of the Central Bank of Iraq.
A statement by the bank stated, “The Rafidain Bank will start approving the share of selling the dollar to the traveler at a rate of $2,000, from tomorrow, Sunday, according to the instructions of the Central Bank of Iraq.”
He added, “The branches covered by the deposit of the Iraqi dinar in Baghdad are (Palestine Street – Firdous Square – Al-Mashtal – Officers’ House – Al-Muhit – Al-Rafi’i – Al-Maarifa – Arab Quarter – Bab Al-Mu’azzam – Jerusalem – Eastern Gate – Al-Khadraa – Al-Amel District – General Secretariat of the Council of Ministers.” )”. https://economy-news.net/content.php?id=32981
It Is Likely That The Budget Will Be Approved Before Eid Al-Fitr
The first 2023/03/18 Abdul Rahman Ibrahim Yesterday, Friday, the House of Representatives officially received the draft federal budget law for the Republic of Iraq for the fiscal years 2023, 2024, and 2025, in implementation of the provisions of the Constitution and the Federal Financial Management Law.
Government spokesman Basem Al-Awadi said: “The draft budget law, including new articles and paragraphs that were approved for the first time, is capable of facilitating the implementation of projects, plans, executive and development programs, and the provision of infrastructure and services for citizens.”
On the other hand, Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Shakhwan Abdullah, announced in a statement that he had received the draft federal budget law, which is the highest in the history of Iraq, with a value exceeding 197 trillion dinars, based on the price of a barrel of oil at $70, while the deficit amounted to 63 trillion dinars.
A member of the Parliamentary Finance Committee, Jamal Cougar, suggested approving the state’s federal budget for the current year before Eid Al-Fitr.
The Financial Management Law No. 6 of 2019 allowed the Federal Ministry of Finance to prepare a medium-term budget for a period of (3) three years, to be submitted once and legislated, and the first year is obligatory.
Adviser to the Prime Minister for Financial Affairs, Mazhar Muhammad Salih, explained to the Iraqi News Agency (INA) that “the circulation of the sums allocated to the governorates for the purposes of investment spending, which could not be disbursed during the fiscal year, was included in the draft federal budget law for the year 2023, which is a flexible and unrestricted mechanism that allows the governorates Conducting financial transactions within its annual allocations related to investment spending on projects.
He added, “Financial Management Law No. 6 of 2019 in force and amended in 2020 took the issue of allocated unspent financial allocations to the governorates by preserving their rights in allocation in order to sustain spending on investment projects without delay or delay.”
And Prime Minister Muhammad Shia’ al-Sudani said, last Monday, in a press conference: “In this budget, we gave the governorates the right to recycle the allocated amounts,” stressing that “the priorities of the government program will be present in the 2023 budget, and the budget for three years supports stability.” financial”. https://alsabaah.iq/73532-.html
Economist: The Decline In The Dollar Is A Matter Of Time, As Business Operations Adapt To Monetary Policy
Saturday 18 March 2023 10:32 | Economical Number of readings: 267 Baghdad / NINA / – The expert in economic affairs, Raad Twij, confirmed that the decline in the price of the dollar is a matter of time, related to the adaptation of commercial operations with monetary policy.
Twigg said in a statement to the National Iraqi News Agency / NINA /: “The integration of Iraqi merchants’ dealings within the electronic platform of the Central Bank does not exceed 20% of the total number of merchants,” indicating: “Increasing this percentage could be an administrative issue in which the Central Bank undertakes Al-Iraqi introduces merchants to the mechanisms of submission, which will prompt merchants to move away from parallel markets and resort to the electronic platform.
He explained: “This will be in favor of a greater decline in the dollar and its approach to the official price of 1,300 dinars,” stressing that the process of declining the exchange rate is a matter of time in which commercial operations adapt to monetary policy , which will not exceed six months. The current year announced economic measures and packages, including the electronic platform to reduce the exchange rate of the dollar against the dinar, which witnessed a significant increase in the past few months https://ninanews-com.translate.goog/Website/News/Details?key=1041112&_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en
A Deputy Calls For An Investigation Into The Disbursement Of Trillions Of Dinars For Presidencies And Ministries In A Previous Budget
Baghdad-Iraq today: On Friday, the former head of the National Approach (Virtue) Bloc, Ammar Tohme, demanded an investigation into the “huge expenses” of presidencies and ministries in the 2012 final accounts.
And Tohme mentioned in a statement, “Notes about the law of ratification of the final accounts for the year 2012, as follows: –
- The actual expenditures of the Presidency of the Republic amounted to (55.8) billion dinars … which is a large number that we need to know the details of its expenditure resources.
- The expenditures amounted to the Council of Ministers and the departments affiliated to it are (3.2) trillion dinars.. which is a very huge amount that requires a statement of the details of its expenditure resources, the units allocated to it, the amount Allocated for each unit, and the expenditures in which it was spent.
- The actual expenditures of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs amounted to (518) billion dinars, It did not mention the detailed disbursement resources to verify the reality of the need for such allocations.
- The actual expenditures of the Ministry of Health amounted to (4.9) trillion dinars. It is also necessary to indicate the details of the expenditure, its resources and its doors, especially since the availability of medicines and health services in general was at a weak level during that period.
- The actual expenditures of the Ministry of Municipalities amounted to (2.1) trillion dinars.. The details of their disbursement and the projects that were completed from this spending or the projects that were financed from these allocations were not mentioned. The amount of spending is commensurate with the actual completion of projects on the ground.
- The expenditures of the Ministry of Construction and Housing amounted to more than (one trillion dinars). The attached table did not mention the nature of the projects that were spent on their completion and the ratio of the expenditure to the actual completed ratio.
- The actual expenditure of the Ministry of Oil amounted to (11.2) trillion dinars, and the table did not show the amount of the amounts disbursed to the attached licensing round companies and the amounts disbursed to the projects completed by the Ministry’s companies. Oil revenues.. Let us see if the result of these contracts is the same as the result of partnership contracts in production?
- The actual expenditures of the Kurdistan Region amounted to (13.5) trillion distributed over the current budget with an amount of more than (9.2) trillion dinars, and the investment budget with an amount of more than (3.9) trillion dinars. The law states that it has not been subject to auditing by the Office of Financial Supervision because of the failure to prepare the technical requirements and not to allow the Bureau’s employees to audit them.
- The table attached to the law states that the implementation rate of the Kurdistan Region of the investment budget amounted to (100%), and the implementation rate of the current budget amounted to (103%). How was this increase spent for him when it is not allocated according to the budget law!?
- While the total current investment and allocations for the oil-producing governorates (Basra, Dhi Qar, Maysan and Wasit) for the same year amounted to (4.5) trillion dinars, noting that the total population of those four southern governorates exceeds the population of the region!.
- The actual expenditure for goods and services for the year 2012 amounted to (1.14) trillion dinars, and the table did not mention the details of this expenditure.Note that the actual expenditure for the year (2020) for the same title of goods and services did not exceed (8) trillion, because the lack of revenue made the exchange closer to realism and avoided waste, entertainment, extravagance, and other pests of management of public funds.
- The total expenditures of grants, subsidies, interest, and other actual expenditures for the year 2012 amounted to more than (17) trillion dinars, while the actual spending for the same total of these addresses for the year 2020 amounted to (7.3) trillion dinars.
- The surplus for the fiscal year 2012 amounted to (14.6) trillion dinars.. The fate of this amount in subsequent years must be clarified in detail.
- The benefit of presenting the final accounts on the specified legal date, four months after the end of the fiscal year, is clear for the purpose of assessing the realism of the allocations required in the following year’s budget..and for the purpose of Comparing the actual expenditure for the year 2011 with the year 2012..
The actual expenditure for the year 2011 amounted to (78, 7) trillion dinars, while the actual expenditure for the year 2012 amounted to (105) trillion dinars.. meaning that the actual expenditure difference between two consecutive years exceeded (26) trillion dinars.
- The report indicates that the amount of the overrun on some of the allocations items amounted to (5.9) trillion dinars. He did not specify the names of the exceeded units and the reasons for the overrun. Was the overrun dealt with and proved that there was no waste and corruption in this huge amount?
- The report indicates that the total amounts of cash advances disbursed without financial allocations allocated for them during the year 2012 amounted to (8.6) trillion dinars, meaning that there is no legal basis for disbursing these funds.. The report did not clarify whether the disbursement, benefits and resources were verified. On which this large sum was spent, and the exchange orders correspond to the actual achievement of this spending?.
- The law stipulates that the Ministry of Finance must address the reservations and observations of the Federal Bureau of Financial Supervision report dated (9/23/2014) within a maximum period of (120) days from the date of issuance of the law.
This is strange, because the remedy and correction is supposed to take place before the final accounts are approved, otherwise the approval of the law in this way will not lead to addressing the observations of the Financial Supervision Bureau, and the fate of those funds.
Is it not known, and was it spent legally and to meet a realistic need, or was it wasted and corrupted? Especially since the law states that the matter deserves referral to the competent investigative and judicial authorities.
- What confirms our concern about the ineffectiveness of the article that we referred to above in its current form.. The same law indicates in a subsequent article that the observations and irregularities contained in the final accounts for the years (2005-2011), which were approved by Parliament in the third parliamentary session, must be filtered in the same way.
It appears that the remedies for these violations have not been completed to this day.. So how can we repeat a work mechanism that failed to hold accountable the violators of the laws of managing public funds.. Some of them may have gone to waste or corruption.
- The financial control report is supposed to include a classification of the violations that occurred in the 2012 budget, and mentions what amounts to a crime by virtue of the laws in force, so that Parliament can inform, investigate and monitor the procedures followed in dealing with these financial breaches and breaches.
- The law referred to the observations and reservations of the Office of Financial Supervision on the accounts of some addresses, and did not indicate the details of those violations and the amount of amounts related to these violations, such as the existence of financial differences in The balance of allocations between the Budget Department and the Accounting Department in the Ministry of Finance, such as the use of emergency allocations, and foreign military sales accounts. of the Iraqi government (FMS), foreign investment, and internal and external borrowing. LINK
The Central Bank Launches Decisions That Facilitate The Procedures For Obtaining The Dollar
2023-03-17 | Source: Sumerian 1,326 views A package of new decisions launched by the Central Bank aimed at facilitating obtaining the dollar and limiting its smuggling, is a matter of several reformist economists.
Decisions, facilities and packages in order to control the rise in the price of the dollar against the dinar, as the official price cannot be obtained by the simple citizen locally, which prompted the Central Bank to clamp down on price speculators.
Financial and economic experts said that the facilitation package recently launched by the Central Bank dried up the sources of smuggling and stopped tourism companies from exploiting the crisis. LINK
Central Bank Governor: We Are Working With The Government To Make The Dinar The Main Currency In The Iraqi Market
Money and business Economy News-Baghdad On Thursday, the Governor of the Central Bank, Ali Mohsen Al-Alaq, set the objectives of monetary policy in Iraq, pointing out that he would take the necessary legal steps within the framework of the dinar being a major currency prevailing in the market in cooperation with the government.
Al-Alaq said on the second day of the seventh Sulaymaniyah Forum, followed by “Al-Iqtisad News”, that “the monetary policy includes two basic goals,” noting that “one of these goals is to maintain the general level of prices, that is, the strength of the currency locally and the exchange rate, which represents the strength of the currency externally.”
He added that he “will take the necessary legal steps in the context of the dinar being a major currency prevailing in the market, in cooperation with the government.”
He noted that “buying and selling in a foreign currency is a strange matter and a widespread phenomenon in the Iraqi markets, which is (the dollarization of the market),” pointing out that “the currency is a symbol of sovereignty and a title for the country, and abandoning it is tantamount to lowering the flag.”
He pointed out that “externally we do not have a problem with remittances, and every day we open new outlets to sell the dollar at the official rate.”
Al-Alaq pointed out that “inflation and the exchange rate are high factors, and we note a growth in the money supply, and the currency export witnessed a storm, which is an abnormal growth in the absence of productive growth, and indicates an increase in import demand.”
And he explained, “The central bank law stipulates that it sells foreign currency without placing restrictions, and the text of the phrase in the article is (simple unconditional sale), which is the ideal case through which the central bank can maintain the exchange rate, that is, respond to every demand for the dollar.”
And that “the problem is that there are more controls and standards in verifying the buying and selling of foreign currency, and with the increase in the international currency war, it makes the process of setting more controls and restrictions increasing.”
And the governor continues, “The central bank has become in a complex balancing act between achieving a simple unconditional sale so that there is no room for the price difference and speculation, and the application of these standards that require a review of all operations.”
He expressed his regret, saying, “The central bank bears additional burdens in applying these standards due to the absence of the role of other institutions that are supposed to help in the process of verifying operations.
For example, if our border crossings were at a degree of organization and recording operations correctly, it would enable all parties.” From the knowledge of the foreign dollar and its conformity in these operations .. There are large gaps in the border crossings, some of which have been diagnosed for many years, and some of which are new with experience.
And he warned that “the central bank has the ability and desire to achieve its goal of responding to the demand for the dollar, whatever its size, and it is now able to offer the dollar at the level of demand; but what reduces this supply is a group of merchants and others, who are not ready to enter into these processes and controls; so there is A deficiency in the process of covering the demand, if we see that the existing rates of remittances and the demand for dollars and credits do not cover only a small percentage of the real trade of Iraq, and we are trying to bridge this gap through various means to earn these and their entry into the process from its correct gate.
https://economy-news.net/content.php?id=32967
