BETWEEN IMF RECOMMENDATIONS AND BAGHDAD’S AMBITIONS… IRAQ PLANS A NEW ECONOMY

BETWEEN IMF RECOMMENDATIONS AND BAGHDAD’S AMBITIONS… IRAQ PLANS A NEW ECONOMY

Prime Minister’s advisor, Mazhar Mohammed Saleh, confirmed on Monday that the government’s reform policy has not deviated from the recommendations of the International Monetary Fund, while explaining that the government seeks to transform the rentier economy into a diversified, productive economy. 

“Despite the significant financial exposure to oil revenues, which has made the financing of public spending, especially investment, dependent on oil price fluctuations and the oil asset cycle, as well as the pressure of employment in the government sector, which has absorbed the state’s resources without creating parallel productivity in the real economy, these are facts that put pressure on the growth paths of the rentier economy.

However, it can be said that Iraq possesses promising economic components if they are employed within a realistic and gradual development vision,” Saleh said in a statement to the official media, followed by “Al-Mutalaa”.

He added, “Strengthening the non-oil sector requires a real shift from a rentier economy to a diversified productive economy, something the current government is seeking to achieve within the framework of its government program. The reform policy currently being adopted by the government has not departed from the recommendations of the International Monetary Fund, which are repeated in most of its meetings, official gatherings, and reports.” He pointed out that the government program approved by the Council of Representatives in October 2022 serves as a guide and vision that has been implemented in the work of the Iraqi reform government.

This has been embodied in the transformations in the country’s economic policy, despite the heavy social and economic legacy accumulated over the past years, such as stalled projects, thousands of employment contracts with the government that lead to permanent employment, and the poverty alleviation program, which required reaching two million families in the social welfare budget. He explained that:

“The government has paved its way with the non-oil economy in an exceptional way since it announced that it is a government of services, as it began implementing dozens of service infrastructure projects that were suspended, including starting to build one million housing units and hundreds of school buildings, hospitals, bridges, roads, electricity and water networks.

And announcing a partnership program, especially in the industrial and energy fields, with the private sector, by granting the private sector sovereign guarantees to interact in technologically advanced industrial investment, without neglecting the agricultural support policy that provided sufficient security from the production of grain crops. This is what indicated the decline in unemployment to 13 percent after it was 17 percent, in addition to the high stability in the general price level, which did not exceed 3 percent.”

He continued, “The government is proceeding with banking structural reforms without interruption, in addition to its successes in bringing Iraq into the digital age by improving digital payment systems, and the progress achieved in the gas sector and its exploitation within the development of the energy sector and natural resources, all of which constitute key factors for sustainable economic growth, which reflects the stability of Iraq’s credit rating, with the adoption of the Development Path Strategy as a program to achieve the goals of generating a leading economic sector in development outside the oil sector, to shape the coming economic future in sustainable development in our country without interruption.”