So the meetings that they’re talking about is this last couple of days, Saturday and Sunday mainly, probably yesterday Sunday, it says. The kurdish leader Masud Barzani stressed on Monday that the best way to end the differences, which he’s talking today, is to resort to dialogue and understanding between the iraqi federal government and the Kurdistan regional government. The statement points out that the members of guest delegation expressed during the meeting that their happiness to visit the Kurdistan region, praising the historical role of the President Barzani in building the new Iraq and the struggle against dictatorship. So you got two entities coming together at the same time, which they really haven’t done.
They had a lot of turmoil in the past, and now they’re at the dialogue table, have been for quite some time, all these years. And now they’ve come to the agreement where you have a huge delegation from Iraq has gone to the Kurdistan region. And who is it? It’s the highest executive authorities in Iraq, the Ministerial Council of Economics.
I think you guys can easily find that information. Who’s involved in that? And it’s the Ministry of Planning, Trade, Interior, Central bank of Iraq, legal Department, finance department, oil department. I mean, the whole list was immense, all of them there with their counterparts from the Kurdistan region, meaning of the minds working it out, which reeks of national reconciliation.
I don’t know if you believe or know what national reconciliation is, but it is very, very important. It’s always been something on my mind for over 15 years. And if they get national reconciliation, I can see that Iraq is going to go so far. Okay.
It’s phenomenal. So for his part, he expressed a warm welcome to the high level delegation, just kind of lined that out of the iraqi federal government and expressed his hope that his visit and these meetings would have a positive result or results for the benefit of all Iraqis and for the Kurdistan region. So that is really a very good, a good thing that we’ve seen all these different people showing up. And if you saw the pictures, it’s like the red carpet treatment.
If they get national reconciliation and they verbally come to agreement, they’re talking about unification, they’re talking about unifying things, and you’re going to see some of that as well. But it says here that the kurdish leader, the best way to end the differences is to resort to dialogue and understanding between the federal iraqi government and the Kurdistan regional government.
And he says Barzani praised the role and efforts of Prime Minister Mohammad Shia al Sadani in removing obstacles and resolving the difference, is stressing that importance of having good intentions and real and sincere will. I think Sudani fits that pretty much myself, in addition to commitment to the constitution and political agreements in order to make sure the dialogue process is successful and they resolve the problems. So look, the high level delegation in Kurdistan region that contains those folks I told you about, the Ministry of finance, chief staff of the financial, the council of ministers, number of officials from the Kurdistan region.
So we may have to see how fruitful these events are that they’ve done. But I would suggest that they didn’t go there if they weren’t on the expectation to be with the head of the Kurdistan region without thinking that there’s going to be some paperwork that’s going to get signed and maybe we’ll see evidence of that in the next.
The national reconciliation what we’re seeing today and the last few days is that’s what they’re looking for, So the next article that we’re going to talk about is the ministerial Council of economy, the MCOE.
And again, it is the highest executive authorities in Iraq. Okay. It says they take their ministerial council of economy takes decisions to unify many procedures with Erbil.
So this was yesterday, Sunday. It says after extensive discussions, it was decided to approve the findings of the joint committees between the Ministry of Industry and Minerals in the federal government and the Ministry of Industry and Trade in the regional government. So you see how they got the counterparts together. It’s awesome.
It says, according to the joint minutes agreed upon. So they’ve done something between the two parties to be implemented after their approval and ratification by the two relevant ministers and submitted to the federal Council of Ministers for ratification. So they probably went over the things that they’re going to be ratifying, which is.
It says the council decided the Ministry of Commerce in the federal government and the regional government would take the necessary measures to complete the electronic linking process and create a specific window to unify import. Unify import and export licences and exchange data electronically, including unifying the procedures for registering companies and factories between the two parties. So unification reconciliation sounds really, really promising.
The committee is responsible for unifying the procedures for elevating and conforming to the standards of goods and commodities. It says, unifying the mechanisms of importing and exporting gold, precious metals, in coordination with the central standardisation and quality control agencies between the two parties. Unifying the instructions and controls for classifying contractors. Instructions mean that you have to abide by those and that’s what the contractors will have to do.
The deputy prime minister of planning pointed out that the importance of combining all these efforts to ensure the success of general population census and. And which he describes as a developmental, as being developmental because its outcomes will contribute to advancing the wheel of development and solving many technical problems related to statistics, population ratios, parliamentary representation and others. if you notice today that they talked about having over 40 million national cards and here they’re talking about census in the Erbil yesterday, they know that everything’s coming together electronically.
They talked about the federal complete electronic linking. So they were linking the government of Iraq, which is Baghdad, to the region, electronically. That’s all these systems that are in play right now, you guys, it’s been ongoing for not just a couple days, it’s been over since Sudani got into office.
So it’s pushing almost two years. Not quite, but close. So anyway, the council decided to continue to holding these technical meetings to form four working groups and bilateral meetings for the following sectors. But, the two parties, Baghdad and Erbil, agreed to make every effort to complete the requirements for conducting the general population census in various parts of Iraq and to prepare the infrastructure, logistics, technical matters and human cadres to make it a success.
Key importance, national reconciliation. They’re going to need that because it all comes around to what the citizens constitutional rights. Every citizen of Iraq, not just the Kurds, not just Baghdad, everybody. So, so they have the finance, planning, ports, oil, energy, trade, agriculture and industry, labour and social affairs.
It will complete its work today and it submit its recommendation. So all of that they said would be completed yesterday and submit the recommendations to the ministerial Council of the economy, which is the MCoE in its session that would be held tomorrow, which is, in continuation of today’s meetings yesterday, according to the statement. So there’s probably some people that are still there hammering things out as we speak, or they were earlier today.
We’ll see how that goes. So it sounds like there’s more support that, you know, there is reconciliation in the air, there is unification in the air.
Why would they be using the word historical meaning? Because it’s absolutely probably going to be historical and they’re going to show us exactly how historical it is, I’m sure, in their own time, in their own manner, and without us knowing exactly when they’re going to do that. So that’s okay. So here, you guys, this is, this is kind of the kicker for tonight.
There’s an article that came out today that was called the parallel market will be upended sources. It says expected decisions from the central bank will confuse markets and raise exchange rates. It says the central bank will issue new decisions regarding foreign currency prices and the method of trading them within Iraq.
It is likely that these decisions will lead to an increase in the dollar exchange rate in the parallel market due to the currency shortage. The aim of these decisions is to limit currency smuggling or the monopoly by the weak willed. So when you’re talking about the parallel market, you’re talking about a black market, you’re talking about in a legal market that’s subverting the platforms to get the dollar that’s coming to an end.
It says an economist jumps in this afternoon after that article and the economist blames the central bank for dollars.
This al Tamimi today told the news in Baghdad that there are confused decisions, including the decision to stop selling dollars to travellers and the decision to stop dealing with Western Union and MoneyGram. Well, they’re talking about the dollar.
They’re talking about stopping the trade for travellers with those platforms indefinitely. Not so sure. But right now sounds like yes for a purpose, to basically cease and desist when it comes to the parallel market, it’s illegal. And if in fact that they say what they said they were going to do, and there’s videos out this weekend, or at least one, possibly two from different agencies, same video pretty much.
But obviously talk about the strength of the dinar and to be careful about buying currencies outside the dinar. Like for instance, foreign currencies, all of them, for instance. Because why, if they’re going to have a strong currency and you’re out of your dinar and they have a value that’s significantly higher, or back to one, the old glory days, can you imagine how much money you would lose by being held in the euro, the dollar, the United States dollar or any other foreign currency that it doesn’t have the strength that Iraq’s capable of. Even Kuwait might be one that you might not want even at that price.
So they said all foreign currencies. It’s likely that these decisions will lead to an increase in the dollar exchange rate in the parallel market due to the currency shortage. So like I just said, if they raise the value of their currency to be significantly higher than the dinar.
Dollar, forgive me, the dinar, higher than the dollar. Like al Sudani said, he said it more than once, the dinar is going to be stronger than the dollar. And here again this weekend, videos come out and talk about that.
Today the CBI comes out and tells us that there will be issuing new decisions regarding foreign currencies and the method of trading them.
The CBI adjusted in our exchange rate to be stronger than the dollar. The parallel market will take a major hit. Because again, they’re going to lose money.
And so therefore, if they’re forced, if they’re not using the dollar. If they are using the dollar. If they’re using the dollar and you’re buying it in the illegal market, the price is going to go up.
The amount of people that have the utility of that parallel market is very insignificant. Al Saleh has told, said it a couple of times that that market is not the big driving factor. And he says, look, it’s not what we adjust our currency exchange rate for the iraqi dinar on. The bottom line is it’s the people.
If you’re going to be doing illicit trade, you’re going to be doing trafficking, you’re going to be doing drugs, and you’re going to be selling money. And you need to use the dollar to do that illicit trade.
You won’t be able to get the dollar anymore. Only dollars you’re going to get on the street are going to be from people that have some. And if they don’t have any, whatever little you’re going to get, it’s going to drive the price up, which is going to make it ill affordable.
You just won’t be able to do it. That’s the point that I think they’re making
They report that foreign exchange markets should be expecting a price rise, so they’re given a warning.
It’s big. Central bank will issue new decisions. The central bank says they’re going to issue new decisions regarding foreign currency pricing, the method of trading them within Iraq.
It’s likely these decisions will lead to an increase in the dollar exchange rate in the parallel market due to the currency shortage.
Central bank is going to make some decisions regarding currency exchange rates. And we’re going to find out how that’s going to work out in the short term. Because obviously, if they’re coming to this extent, something’s up.
If they have national reconciliation, if they have the electronic systems interlinking, we can see something’s up. Exchange rates are very sensitive when it comes to keeping a tight lid on things because it’s very important that they don’t let too much of the information out.
