TNT:
Tishwash: Al-Fateh: The devaluation of the dollar affected the size of the budget by $14 billion
The representative of the Al-Fateh Alliance, Ali Turki, revealed, on Tuesday, the most prominent obstacles facing the budget, indicating that the reduction in the price of the dollar caused the value of the budget to be around 14 billion dollars within the investment projects.
Turki said, in a statement to Al-Maalouma, that “the delay in sending the budget to the House of Representatives was due to the presence of obstacles that the government faced, whether by changing the exchange rate of the dollar from 147 to 132 dinars against each dollar.”
He added, “The change in the dollar exchange rate affected the size of the budget value by about $14 billion, which was reflected negatively on investment projects.”
Turki added, “The main obstacle is the prolongation of negotiations on the agreement between the central government and the region, in terms of legal and technical aspects.”
The deputy head of the Planning and Government Program Monitoring Committee, Representative Muhammad Karim, had confirmed in a statement to Al-Maalouma that the visit of the President of the Kurdistan Region to Baghdad will push for an agreement between the government and the region regarding the latter’s share in the budget, suggesting that the budget be sent next week. link
************
Tishwash: A legal team from the Kurdistan Region visits Baghdad to draft the budget and oil and gas laws
The spokesman for the Kurdistan Regional Government, Jutiar Adel, stated, on Sunday, that a legal delegation from the region will soon visit the capital, Baghdad, with the aim of drafting the financial budget for the year 2023, and oil and gas.
Adel said in a statement to the official website of the regional government today, that the delegation of the Kurdistan Regional Government visited Baghdad on the basis of the political agreement formed by the Sudanese government to prepare the 2023 budget law, the oil and gas law and many other issues, and the delegation met with the Iraqi Oil Minister Hayan Abdul Ghani to discuss in general about a number of issues. Issues related to the oil and gas law and negotiations are ongoing.
He explained that the delegation met with the Iraqi government team to discuss the draft federal budget law, and a legal team is scheduled to visit Baghdad during the next two days to draft legal texts related to the draft budget law and the oil and gas law.
Adel also indicated that there is an understanding on general principles, but there is a need for more discussions and meetings, and the joint committee will start working in the coming days to implement the agreement reached between the two sides.
He stressed that the oil and gas law is important and necessary for all of Iraq because the oil sector has many problems and has no law, and this sector is now working according to the law of the Ministry of Oil that was drafted in the year 1976, so the oil and gas law is not only to solve the problems between the Kurdistan Region and Baghdad, but rather it will solve All Iraq’s problems and reconsidering the Iraqi oil sector.
The KRG delegation also met during this visit to Baghdad with the US Ambassador to Iraq, Alina Romansky, and they stressed the need to resolve issues between the two governments on the basis of the constitution and to continue negotiations for this purpose, according to the spokesman.
The delegation of the Kurdistan Regional Government also met with the Chairman of the Finance Committee in the Iraqi Parliament, Atwan Al-Atwani, and discussed the next steps in approving the draft budget law, in coordination with all concerned parties.
The negotiating delegation of the Kurdistan Regional Government returned to Erbil after it conducted a two-day visit to Baghdad with the aim of resolving the differences and outstanding issues between the two sides, according to what was announced today, Tuesday, by the head of the cabinet office of the region, Omid Sabah. link
************
Tishwash: Iran to launch new Currency Exchange Center
The new Currency Exchange Center will start operating in Iran, as of February 21, 2023, Director General of Central Bank of Iran (CBI), Mohammad Reza Farzin wrote on his Twitter page.
According to Farzin, the mentioned Currency Exchange Center will provide all the real needs of the country in terms of foreign currency.
Then director general added that the Currency Exchange Center will also determine the price of foreign currencies and currency costs based on the country’s reserves.
“The price of foreign currencies and gold will be determined based on the economic realities of the country,” he wrote.
Currently, the price of $1 is 42,000 Iranian rials and 1 euro is 44,923 rials.
Meanwhile, on the black market, $1 is currently worth 500,000 rials, while 1 euro is worth 536,000 rials. link
************
Tishwash: Report: US control of transfers raises Iraq’s reserves and plunges the Iranian currency
The London-based Al-Arab newspaper reported that the increase in Iraqi dollar reserves coincided with the collapse of the Iranian riyal due to the effectiveness of tight US control over the movement of the dollar in Iraq, which prevented the flow of more hard currency towards Iran and led to the collapse of its currency.
Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein revealed on Monday that the Iraqi Central Bank’s dollar reserves exceeded $100 billion. This statement comes after Hussein’s return from the United States at the head of a financial and economic delegation, in which the issue of currency was one of its main elements, as Washington has implemented, since last November, strict control over financial transfers.
Hussein said in Baghdad that “the recent negotiations of the Iraqi delegation in Washington regarding the movement of the dollar were successful, and took place in accordance with mutual understandings without preconditions, and the movement of the dollar and the final beneficiary were determined according to an electronic platform system placed in many banks and border crossings to control the dollar and manage it properly in Iraq”.
He added, “The negotiations were successful, good, and advanced in order to protect the joints of Iraq’s economy and fight smuggling.”
And he stressed that “there will be stability in the exchange rate of the dollar in the Iraqi market, and what is happening now in terms of rise and fall is a matter of time.”
Observers of the London newspaper believe that the optimistic tone of the Iraqi foreign minister regarding the exchange situation shows that he received a positive assessment during his visit to Washington regarding the success of the American plan to track the movement of remittances and prevent the manipulation that was taking place between parties inside Iraq in order to secure the smuggling of currency to Iran, which suffers from sanctions. strict American.
Last November, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York began imposing stricter restrictions on international dollar transfers to Iraqi commercial banks, in a move US and Iraqi officials said was “aimed at curbing money laundering and the illegal transfer of dollars to Iran and other heavily sanctioned countries.”
Iraqi banks must now record their “transfers (in dollars) on an electronic platform, which checks the requests. The Federal Reserve examines them, and if it has doubts, it stops the transfer,” said Mazhar Saleh, the Iraqi prime minister’s advisor for financial affairs.
And Iraq has begun to comply with the standards of the international transfer system (Swift), which Iraqi banks must apply since mid-November to access Iraq’s dollar reserves in the United States.
Since the implementation of the restrictions, the Federal Reserve has rejected “80 percent of requests” for financial transfers to Iraqi banks, according to Salih, due to doubts about the final destination of those amounts being transferred.
The strictness in monitoring transfers and blocking money smuggling by bypass routes made Iran a complicated situation, and they stressed that the Iraqi financial crisis is due in large part to the Iranian role, which was carried out through local political agents, militias, and merchants.
The newspaper added that the results of US supervision appeared quickly, as the local currency in Iran fell below a basic moral level, retreating from 500 thousand riyals against the dollar on Monday, as market dealers do not see an end to the sanctions.
Data published by the Bonbast website on the Internet, which collects up-to-date data from Iranian exchange centers, showed that the local currency fell to a new record level against the dollar, amounting to 501,300 riyals.
Because of an inflation rate of about 50 percent, Iranians seek safe havens in order to preserve their savings by buying dollars and other hard currencies or buying gold, indicating more headwinds that will face the Iranian riyal.
Over the past six months, the Iranian currency has lost about 60 percent of its value, according to the website.
The newspaper pointed out that the annoyance of Iran’s allies with the US control over the movement of money in Iraq is quite remarkable, which was reflected in the statements of more than one figure affiliated with Tehran, including deputies within the coordination framework, where the representative of the Al-Fatah Alliance, Aqil Al-Fatlawi, said, “The World Bank and the US administration use the SWIFT platform.” to impose their will and blackmail Iraq,” adding that the United States has passed the stage of military domination and moved towards economic domination through those institutions under the international cover.
And he considered that “those institutions are a bad example of domination and starvation of peoples,” and continued that “the United States at the present time is still the restrictive and pressing element on the Iraqi economy, especially after Iraq’s exit from the seventh and sixth items.” Link
