The prime minister’s adviser for financial affairs, Mazar Mohammed Saleh, ruled out the government removing three zeros from the Iraqi currency currently, pointing out that achieving this requires two basic conditions. Saleh said in a statement that he rules out the government currently removing zeros, noting that the removal of three zeros from the currency is not related to the value of cash, but to improve cash payment systems. He explained that the three zeros added price and monetary inflation to the currency starting from the Iran Iraq war and passing through the time of the economic blockade. The 1990s and the conflicts generated an inflation on the value of the currency.
He pointed out that when prices rise, we need larger monetary categories to maintain the equivalent between price and money. For example, because of price inflation, the 25 iraqi dinars became 25,000 dinars. Saleh noted the importance of reducing the calculations that have reached in recent years to trillions and this has become tiring, adding that the process of raising three zeros does not only mean the value of the currency, but also of the calculations and statistics and to make it easy to manage. The prime minister’s advisor for financial affairs Saleh, also said that the process of issuing large categories that shorten the currency in terms of quantities is a process of reform of the cash payments system, especially since this modern and sophisticated time needs fewer numbers.
Saleh said that the removal of three zeros of the currency globally requires two political stability and economic stability. When these two factors are available, countries resort to omitting zeros from their currency, adding that the value is fixed and not affected. It’s a relative change. He stated that the project of removing three zeros we worked on between 2011 and 2012, but it happened to do so because it needs to change the accounts of the Republic of Iraq and statistics and needs cooperation between monetary policy and all government policies.
It is noteworthy that a number of economists and experts recently called for the deletion of three zeros from the iraqi currency, considering that this would reduce monetary inflation in Iraq and strengthen the dinar currency.
