The financial adviser to the Prime Minister, Mazhar Mohammed Saleh, confirmed on Sunday that foreign reserves in Iraq are very high, while determining the total public debt.
Saleh told the official news agency that “the country’s internal public debt is currently estimated at about $50 billion, which is fully owned by the government banking system (i.e. debt within the government apparatus and not outside it).”
He added that “63% of the internal public debt is in the possession of the Central Bank of Iraq and represents local assets in the structure of the balance sheet of the Central Bank,” pointing out that “the remaining internal debt is the possession of the three main government banks at an annual interest rate between 2-3%.”
He pointed out that “the effective external debt to be repaid during the period from 2023 does not exceed 20 billion dollars, which means that the total public debt is currently estimated at $70 billion and constitutes only 30% to 35% of the country’s GDP, which is a very safe ratio compared to the international standard or standard of 60%.”
He added that “the efficiency of the country’s foreign reserves is very high and covers the obligations of external debt by 5 times, which is a high and reassuring standard ratio and reflects the strength of the financial situation of Iraq,” noting that “the mechanism for repaying internal and external debt is through the annual allocations approved in the federal budget.”
He continued that “fiscal policy in Iraq is moving towards adopting the principle of fiscal discipline, which is based on gradually reducing the total accumulated public debt, offset by narrowing the annual deficit in the federal budget and making the new debt, when necessary within the standard ratios, not exceeding the new public debt 3% annually.”
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