Clare: Planning: Census operations will continue for two weeks starting from November 20
The Ministry of Planning confirmed today, Friday, that the date for conducting the census on November 20 is fixed and unchanged, while it indicated that its operations will continue for two weeks until December 3, 2024.
The ministry’s spokesman, Abdul Zahra Al-Hindawi, said in a press statement, “The ministry has completed the requirements for conducting the population census,” stressing that “the percentage of completion of the requirements for enumeration and numbering reached 96% in all governorates, except for the governorates of the Kurdistan Region, which reached 65%.”
Al-Hindawi added, “The Ministry of Planning is anticipating the census as an event that has been absent from Iraq for 27 years, and has worked to provide all requirements for conducting the population census on 11/20-21/2024.”
He added, “The population census project is huge and large and includes an inventory of everything above ground, including buildings, homes, and residential facilities,” stressing, “the development of a comprehensive plan by the Ministry of Planning.”
He explained that “the inventory and numbering process was preceded by aerial photo census operations for all buildings throughout Iraq,” stressing that “the inventory and numbering operations witnessed the addition of 10% of buildings through aerial photos, which records the expansion of the construction and building movement in Iraq.”
Al-Hindawi said, “The ministry has prepared 40,000 well-trained researchers to record population census data,” stressing, “The process of training 80,000 enumerators has begun, so that the total number of researchers will be 120,000.”
He stressed that “the census staff is capable of completing its tasks in the required manner,” while he explained that “the census process is distributed to every 100 families by a researcher to record their basic data (number of individuals, gender, age),” stressing that “the announcement of the initial results includes the general census (number of females + number of males) and the population of each governorate.”
He added, “The census process will continue until December 3, 2024. The counted family will be referred to record data (housing, health and education), and its results will be the end of the census.”
Kimberly: Imo question so are we waiting on the census ? or is everything done for monetary reform?
MOakes: I remember Delta stating yrs ago that the rate per the CBI always changed in the month of December. IMO, this is the way it looks now if the rate is changing in the year 2024. Hope it doesn’t go into 2025. Per Sudani it is to change this year —–2024. Will have to wait and see..
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Clare: The Central Bank of Iraq decides to reduce interest to 5.5% in order to support economic growth
The Central Bank of Iraq decided to reduce the interest rate from 7.5% to 5.5%, after the inflation rate decreased in Iraq.
According to the Ministry of Planning, the inflation rate has fallen from 8% to less than 3%.
Deputy Governor of the Central Bank, Ammar Hamad, said, “Based on the monetary policy orientations to enhance access to targeted inflation rates in a manner that does not conflict with the expected economic growth rates, and is consistent with the policy of developing deposits and increasing credit rates aimed at targeting projects, the Board of Directors of the Central Bank decided to reduce the monetary policy rate to 5.5% instead of 7.5%.”
He added that the securities, namely Islamic deposit certificates and traditional transfers, were reactivated according to an annual plan with two terms, 14 days with a return of 4% and 182 days with a return of 5.5%.
He stressed that the maximum investment limit does not exceed 50% of the total private sector deposits at the bank.
The Central Bank stressed that the bank’s investment ceiling in a single auction does not exceed 500 billion dinars.
