Minister of Trade arrives in Geneva to head the negotiating team for Iraq's accession to the World Trade Organization
On Tuesday, Minister of Trade Athir Dawood Salman headed the negotiating team for Iraq’s accession to the World Trade Organization in Geneva, while indicating that Iraq would proceed with its accession to the global organization.
The video for this blogpost is below here
The Ministry of Trade said in a statement, seen by "Economy News", that "Minister of Trade Athir Dawood Salman arrived in Geneva today, Tuesday, at the head of the Iraqi negotiating team for Iraq's accession to the World Trade Organization to attend the third meeting of the working group for Iraq's accession, 16 years after the second meeting was held."
It added that "Iraq is proceeding, through the national committee concerned with its accession to the World Organization, which is headed by the Minister of Trade, to complete its procedures to complete the required files and support reforms and legislation to be in line with the market system and enhance the country's economic capabilities to complete the requirements of the next stage of the accession process," explaining that "the preparatory meetings of the Iraqi negotiating team are continuing at the headquarters of the World Trade Organization in Geneva, in preparation for the third meeting of the working group for Iraq's accession, which will be held this week.
Iraq resumes negotiations to join WTO
Minister of Trade and head of the Iraqi team concerned with joining the World Trade Organization, Athir Dawood Al-Ghariri, announced on Monday the resumption of negotiations to join the World Trade Organization, after a hiatus that lasted more than 16 years.
A statement by the ministry, seen by "Al-Eqtisad News", quoted the Director General of the Department of Foreign Economic Relations, Riyadh Fakher Al-Hashemi, as saying that "the Iraqi negotiating teams have begun their preparatory meetings at the headquarters of the World Trade Organization in Geneva, in preparation for the third meeting of the working group on Iraq's accession." Al-
Hashemi added that "the first preparatory meeting was held at the organization's headquarters with the Director of the Accession Department and the organization's experts in goods, services and intellectual property, headed by the Director General of the Department of Economic Relations and the membership of negotiators representing the Iraqi ministries and the Kurdistan Region; to discuss the most important files and documents submitted by Iraq in the previous stage."
He pointed out that "the third official meeting of the working group, which will be headed by the Minister of Trade representing Iraq, will witness a review of the files and documents completed by the National Committee concerned with accession."
He continued, "This is the first time that the Iraqi negotiating team has reached this level of experience in the field of negotiation, which reflects the development of their capabilities and efficiency in dealing with complex issues related to WTO membership."
Pros and cons of Iraq joining the WTO
Since 2003, Iraq has adopted broad open policies towards the world and sought to establish important economic and legislative rules that operate according to the mechanisms of the market system, most of which helped improve Iraq’s foreign trade, after an economic blockade that lasted for more than a decade and led to Iraq’s marginalization on the map of the global economic system and deprived it of investment opportunities, progress, development and technological knowledge that should have helped it confront the rapid developments and changes that international markets have witnessed and whose competitive capabilities have changed dramatically over the past two decades at least.
Thus, Iraq became isolated from its international environment in the midst of a world swept by the currents of merging its companies, liberalizing its markets and integrating them, especially the financial ones, and the dominance of the new liberal doctrine, which required broad economic transformations in the field of information technology that became in harmony with the internationalism of productive activity through the role that multinational companies began to play and the increasing competitive advantage of the products that the world markets began to generate.
However, we find in the integration of financial markets, whose assets exceed $850 trillion, the main title of financial globalization and the main focus of dominance in the globalization of the new liberal economy. At the same time, it represents the trend of transition in the axes of international trade and the introduction to the transformation from the scope of the GATT Agreement signed in 1948 to the World Trade Organization Agreement (WTO), where the latter focused on regulating a wide range of trade in services, especially financial services, whose annexes were called the GATS Agreement in 1994 based on the Uruguay Round.
While the gross domestic product of the world's 192 economies does not exceed $83 trillion annually at present (and the value of world trade in goods and services has also not increased annually by more than a third of the aforementioned global output), we find that trade in currency conversion, speculation, and short-term capital movements exceeds about $4.5 trillion daily in international monetary and financial markets, a speculative financial trade whose annual total exceeds more than fifty times the total global trade in goods and services.
In the midst of these changes in the international commercial and financial space, Iraq has moved to important organizational levels in the transition to a market economy to break the effects of its international isolation by engaging in a strong area of economic liberalism that focused on liberalizing the areas of Iraq's foreign trade in goods and services and the means of financing them, despite the fluctuations in its organization, as well as the development and expansion of areas of progress achieved in some financial services and improving the environment for foreign investment through the legislation of the banking and investment laws and the Central Bank Law, which allows foreign banks to operate in Iraq and allows the transfer of capital and currency in a manner that serves Iraq's openness to the world in the conditions of a central rentier economy that is difficult to deal with in understanding market liberalism, which nevertheless led to providing positive opportunities and promising legal and organizational foundations for the Iraqi business environment.
However, all of this is not enough to put Iraq on the path of international economic competition. There are still more than five thousand legislative texts that hinder economic freedom and market activity, which are being studied by legal circles and which must be amended so that Iraq can integrate into international trade and investment and prepare it to join the World Trade Organization according to the terms of membership in it so that our country can obtain the most-favored nation status and the principle of national treatment.
However, the paradoxes of joining revolve around the issues of oil and agriculture, in addition to other problems of joining.
While oil sector production dominates nearly 50% of Iraq’s GDP, the sector employs only 2% of the Iraqi workforce, and the country’s crude oil exports and revenues constitute the near-absolute majority of total exports, general budget revenues, and foreign exchange earnings. In light of all this, the World Trade Organization excludes crude oil as a commodity within the group of raw commodities traded internationally, which remains the core of the contradiction in Iraq’s accession to that organization that excludes crude oil. If the World Trade Organization had allowed oil to be taken into account, the price would have been determined by global supply and demand, away from the cartel or consumer groups represented by the International Energy Agency and its lines and programs for rationalizing demand for oil. Or away from the cartel or producer groups represented by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its role in regulating production and influencing prices, which is the matter that imposed price and quantity restrictions on a commercial commodity, but a strategic and political one at the same time, which is the driving force of Iraq’s foreign trade.
On the other side of the Iraqi economy, we find the agricultural sector, which includes less than a third of the Iraqi population and about 22% of the Iraqi labor force, and does not contribute to the gross domestic product except by a percentage not exceeding 5%, which made the country a near-net importer of food or agricultural goods, the value of which exceeds 14 billion dollars annually. This important sector, which has been subjected to militarization and neglect over the past thirty years and more, does not have the sufficient components to provide food security in terms of grains or agricultural production requirements after the shrinkage of productive agricultural areas due to desertification, salinization, and the recent water crisis, which eliminated more than 50% of the lands prepared for agriculture, in addition to the deterioration of the agricultural infrastructure, 83% of whose components are controlled by the state as a public commodity.
Here the agricultural sector contradicts the oil sector structurally in the directions of openness to the global market and with two different wings in terms of the impact of commercial benefits and costs. The forces of the international market or global supply and demand have come to control strongly, whether in the demand for oil and its impact on the value of Iraqi exports or in the supply of food products and its impact on the cost of Iraq’s imports from them.
When referring to the philosophy of reducing customs restrictions by 24% and abolishing non-customs restrictions, which are the conditions imposed by the World Trade Organization on the member state in the group of developing countries to work with and implement them within a period of six years from the date of accession, in addition to reducing agricultural support by 13.3% within a period of ten years from accession, we find that these regulatory conditions of the World Trade Organization clash with the conditions and situations of the agricultural market and the global food stock exchange itself. If we look at the agricultural monopolies in the world in light of the deterioration of agricultural development in Iraq, we find a real threat to national food security that restricts the country in the event of joining the organization unless it is preceded by starting or following an agricultural program for self-sufficiency immediately. We will really need a green revolution similar to what Mexico and many Latin American countries have done. Especially if we know that there are between 3 to 6 major monopolistic companies in the world that control 80 to 90% of agricultural crop trade and control prices and quantities such as wheat, sugar, tea, coffee, cotton, jute, etc. At a time when ten multinational companies still control a third of the world's seed and pesticide production and trade.
Despite the above, Iraq’s entry and integration into the global economic space through the World Trade Organization and its dealings with international groups on terms that apply to everyone from a formal standpoint at a time when the world is still divided between the countries of the North and the South or the countries of the advanced industrial center and the developing periphery, Iraq has no choice but to leave its international isolation that it inherited since the blockade that began in 1990, which placed Iraq under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter or its aftermath, a chapter whose effects still provide a negative economic environment hostile to development and perhaps obstructing natural integration into the global market. This chapter prohibits levels of investment in advanced technology or easy dealings with the world due to the restrictions it imposes on our country as a high-risk country that threatens world peace and allows the use of force against it in a regrettable legacy for the civilization of Mesopotamia despite the disappearance of the objective reasons for which the economic blockade was imposed on Iraq. Noting that Iraq's accession to regional economic zones, such as the Greater Arab Free Trade Area and other economic agreements within the framework of the Arab League or other forms of regional integration and consolidation, must take into account the implementation of the provisions contained in the World Trade Organization Agreement and before it the GATT Agreement, both of which have become binding restrictions on the implementation of trade agreements. Thus, any trade facilitations within the framework of regional agreements become useless or worthless if they are less than the facilitations provided within the framework of the World Trade Organization.
Finally, Iraq's continued isolation from its international environment will cost it a lot due to the loss of organizational advantages and opportunities, technological and legal benefits, and other areas of investment and arbitration, which are opportunities that isolation from the world does not provide and does not enable a gradual transformation into a group of stable and low-risk countries, a transformation that encourages international cooperation in a secure global investment and trade environment, provided that effective development begins based on the strong push program.
Video about deleting the 3 zeros
The policy of deleting zeros from the currency means, for example, that the value of a one-thousand note is 1,000 dinars, and will be replaced by a note worth one dinar of the new currency.
Iraq is not the only country that resorts to the policy of deleting zeros from the currency, but there are seventy-70 cases that the world has witnessed since the year one thousand nine hundred and sixty 1960, including
Türkiye: Deleted six zeros from its currency in 2005
Zimbabwe: deleted twelve 12 zeros from its currency in 2009.
And Venezuela: Five zeros were deleted in 2018
But how will the Iraqi economy be affected by deleting the zeros if it is implemented? Although the actual value of the money that people own does not change after deleting the zeros, this step contributes to simplifying the buying and selling processes for individuals and companies.
It makes financial amounts simpler and more understandable. Instead of dealing with huge numbers such as one million 1,000,000 Iraqi dinars, they can be converted into one thousand 1,000 dinars only after deleting three zeros.
Removing zeros may also help in issuing small currencies such as coins, enabling small commodities to be repriced at lower prices. It gives a positive psychological boost to citizens that the Iraqi dinar can now buy more goods and services.
Therefore, countries aim by deleting the zeros to restore confidence in the local currency among citizens and investors
The demand for it increases, and the local currency becomes more competitive with foreign currencies and its exchange for other currencies decreases.
The policy of deleting zeros is often linked to broader economic reforms, such as raising interest rates on bank deposits, to encourage people to save within banks and benefit from high interest on their bank deposits, in an attempt to withdraw liquidity from the market, reduce consumption and decline in prices.
Then exploit this liquidity to expand productive projects, attract local and foreign investments within the country and create many job opportunities to eventually revive the local economy.
But on the other hand, deleting the zeros may cost Iraq money to print new banknotes to no avail. For example, after eliminating 3 zeros from the Iraqi dinar, when we talk about a 200 dinar banknote, it is actually equivalent to 200,000 dinars.
Therefore, it may be necessary to print 4 more 50 dinar notes instead of the 50,000 dinar note.
However, this may not have a clear impact on improving the local economy if it is not part of an economic reform package that helps reduce the amount of money circulating among people and stimulate the economy.
Especially since Iraq's economy is an oil economy that needs to stimulate other productive sectors to drive the local economy
Could deleting the zeros from the Iraqi dinar be a real start to stimulating Iraq's economy?
Our financial and banking system and the global economy
Most countries in the world have been suffering from successive economic crises since 2020 until the present time. They are the most severe and most harmful to the economies of countries than the previous crises that swept the world previously, which began with the closure crisis due to the Corona pandemic and the (stagflation) crisis due to food shortages and rising prices and the Russian-Ukrainian war and economic conflicts between America and China, the latest of which is the Zionist war on Gaza and the occupied Palestinian territories and expectations of a new aggression on Lebanon and the struggle to control oil prices and the attempts of the affected countries to find plans and deals to control this rise that occurred during the past years.
From our follow-up, monitoring and analysis of the global economic movement, we notice that inflation rates have risen in most countries of the world and exceeded one rank, while economic growth rates have declined, especially regional countries, most countries with major economies, and even emerging countries have tried to form new economic axes, poles and blocs and conclude agreements between them and other countries for trade and financial dealings outside the Group of Seven, such as the BRICS bloc. Central banks in most countries have taken difficult decisions in order to control the prices of their local currencies from declining and to maintain their foreign exchange reserves at safe rates, thus limiting stagflation and maintaining relatively stable prices and balanced economic growth with the current prevailing economic conditions by raising interest rates at rates that are consistent with their economic situation.
Therefore, as it relates to the economic situation of Iraq, and despite the fact that the reports of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to evaluate the Iraqi economy for the current year indicate that the inflation rate did not exceed 3 percent, and according to what was announced by the Central Bank, it is better than the inflation rates in regional and neighboring countries, and that the growth rate in the gross domestic product for this year is expected to be 6 percent, Iraq still maintains a good foreign exchange reserve to cover its imports and cover its local currency in circulation. However, its economy is one-sided and depends on oil revenues, and its financial and banking sector is weak and suffers from sanctions and restrictions on the use of the US dollar in foreign banking transactions, and its credit rating is still within limits classified internationally as unstable, and in the absence of
New policy measures: The public finance deficit is expected to reach 7.6 percent in 2024 and widen further thereafter with the expected decline in oil prices in the medium term. As a result, public debt will almost double from 44 percent in 2023 to 86 percent by 2029. The real sector also suffers from many problems that prevent it from achieving the revenues needed to reduce the share of oil revenues in public budgets. This means that the deficit in the balance of payments and the deficit in the trade balance are prevalent, despite the fact that the government, finance, and the central bank are making great efforts to rebuild a solid and sound banking sector, because without a developed banking sector, a sound national economy cannot be built. The inherited and complex problem is the weak compliance of the Iraqi financial and banking sector with international standards, and the foreign trade policy is unclear despite the measures taken by the central bank to regulate trade financing and the approval of some solid foreign banks to correspond. However, the presence of informal border crossings, illegal inter-trade, and speculators in the foreign exchange market have led to fluctuations in exchange rates from time to time.
In order for the Central Bank to play its role in reducing inflation, controlling the general price level, maintaining the dinar exchange rate within its targeted limits, controlling the interest rate, maintaining its foreign exchange reserves within the required rates, and controlling the money supply, and certainly all of these aspects are among the objectives of the Central Bank and the concerns of its Board of Directors during the next phase and in order to avoid the damage that currently threatens the global economy. This requires taking bold steps as follows:
First - Reviewing the structure and presentation of the general budget and determining the contribution rates of the agricultural, industrial, and tourism sectors and non-oil revenues at no less than 30 percent during the coming years until 2030. Total expenditures must not exceed total revenues in any case and the deficit must be zero.
Second - Adopting agricultural, industrial and commercial policies that are consistent with the trend to support, assist, motivate and encourage the private sector to contribute to sustainable development projects and transition to market leadership in 2030.
Third - Re-establishing a new strategy for the Central Bank for the years (2027-2030) in the field of monetary policy applications, enhancing financial inclusion, controlling exchange rate stability, enhancing regularity in international standards, comprehensive application of digital transformation in the banking sector, and transforming Iraqi government banks into mixed joint-stock companies in accordance with government procedures in this regard and internationally classified.
They are managed in accordance with modern banking technologies, lifting sanctions on private banks, developing their work in accordance with international standards, not allowing the weak ones to remain operating within the banking market, and adopting the principle of competition, whichever is better and serves sustainable development.
The rise in the dollar exchange rate in Iraq.. What is its relationship to Baghdad Airport?
Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani chaired a meeting of the Ministerial Council for the Economy today, Monday, during which the most important decisions related to economic affairs were discussed, and work within the framework of the basic determinants of financial and administrative reform included in the government program.
A statement from his office, received by {Euphrates News}, stated that: “The meeting hosted a group of businessmen specialized in the oil industry, as His Excellency affirmed the government’s support for the active private sector, and its belief in its ability to support the Iraqi economy by providing job opportunities, and establishing a national industry that meets the needs of the local market, indicating that there are practical steps to achieve this support, as it is the only option for the government to cover the needs of citizens, and achieve the requirements of reconstruction and services, in implementation of the government program.
Mr. Al-Sudani stressed the need for private sector companies to adhere to the retirement and social security law for workers, in order to expand care for them in this sector, and increase the number of insured persons, stressing the importance of carrying out real reforms, and directing resources in the right direction, so that dependence on oil revenues as the sole source of income does not continue, and to meet the requirements of the operational and investment budget.
The Council discussed the work of the Diwani Order Committee (24573 in 2024) on studying the economics of oil and gas in the country, leading to the adoption of showing the real costs along the value chain, according to economic foundations.
During the meeting, it was decided to find a mechanism for marketing petroleum products that are expected to increase in the coming years, and to audit the quantities of petroleum derivatives supplied to factories and plants by the Financial Supervision Bureau, as well as to know the size of the current support for factories, and the amount of benefit achieved from it, in addition to evaluating factories according to production capacity, actual production, and the extent of compliance with controls.
It was also decided that government support provided to companies would be based on products, the number of insured workers, and the factory’s ability to export according to a specific mechanism. A committee was formed that includes the Ministries of Oil and Industry, the Investment Authority, and National Security to follow up on the work of factories and verify information. It was also decided, during the meeting, to grant brick factories a period of one and a half years to convert their accreditation from black oil to liquefied gas.
Omani succeeds Plasschaert in Iraq
The Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, announced today, Monday, the appointment of Mohammed Al-Hassan from the Sultanate of Oman as his new Special Representative for Iraq and Head of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI). He succeeds Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert from the Netherlands, to whom the Secretary-General is grateful for her commitment and leadership of UNAMI.
According to a statement by the United Nations received by Mawazine News, "Al-Hassan brings to the position a wide range of diplomatic experience with a career spanning more than thirty years in preventive diplomacy, peacebuilding and development. He most recently served as Permanent Representative of the Sultanate of Oman to the United Nations in New York (since 2019). Prior to that, he held various positions at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Muscat, including Acting Undersecretary for Diplomatic Affairs (2016), Head of the Diwan (2015), and Head of the Minister's Office Department (2012)."
Among his many high-level positions, Mr. Al Hassan has served as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Sultanate of Oman to the Russian Federation and concurrently as Non-Resident Ambassador to Belarus, Ukraine, Armenia and Moldova. Mr. Al Hassan previously served as Deputy Permanent Representative of the Sultanate of Oman to the United Nations in New York. Prior to that, he served as Deputy Permanent Representative of Oman to the United Nations in Geneva.
Mr. Al Hassan holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of Washington in Seattle, USA, a Master of Science in International Relations from St. John’s University in New York, USA, and a PhD in Economics from Moscow State University of Economics, Statistics and Informatics (MESI) in Moscow, Russia. He speaks Arabic, English, Norwegian and Russian.
Minister of Communications: 4 Gulf countries want to pass their cables through Iraq
Minister of Communications, Hiyam Al-Yasiri, announced on Monday that Iraq has become an attractive corridor for international countries, while she indicated that 4 Gulf countries want to pass their cables through Iraq.
Al-Yasiri said in a statement reported by the official news agency, and reviewed by "Al-Eqtisad News", that "the marine and transit cables enhance Iraq's position abroad, and make it a safe and reliable passage compared to the Suez Canal and the cables passing through the Bab al-Mandab Strait and the Red Sea," indicating that "Iraq has become an attractive passage for some international countries."
She added, "The ministry signed with the Gulf Cable Company, which is owned by the Saudi STC Company, to land the third submarine cable to Iraq, and a contract was also signed with the Kuwaiti Zajil Company during the past period."
She continued, "We are now in the process of contracting with the Emirates Telecommunications Company and Omantel, and there are also offers from the Qatari Ooredoo Company and the Bahraini Batelcool Company," stressing that "the Gulf countries have a serious desire to contract with Iraq to pass their communications."
She explained that "the submarine cables are not necessarily owned by the Gulf countries, some of them are owned by Vodafone, which is English, MTN, South Africa, Facebook, and China Mobile, meaning that they are cables that cross the world's seas and reach Iraq via Al-Faw through the Arab Gulf countries."
Kurdish school teachers in Kirkuk join (My Account)
Kurdish school teachers in Kirkuk are set to join the Hesabi banking project in the next few days, making it easier for them to withdraw their salaries easily.
In this context, the director of the Kurdish study in Kirkuk, Kamran Ali, told Kurdistan 24 that "the team of the (My Account) project will visit Kirkuk schools in the next few days, to register Kurdish school teachers," noting that "all Kurdish school teachers will be registered in the project, within a few days."
Regarding the facilitation of receiving salaries, Ali explained that "banks participating in the (Hesabi) project have installed ATMs in Kurdish neighborhoods in Kirkuk, which will allow Kurdish school teachers to withdraw their salaries easily."
In a related context, Kamran Ali stated that "the Ministry of Education in the Kurdistan Regional Government sent a letter to the Council of Ministers in the region, aimed at including Kurdish school teachers in Kirkuk and Tuz Khurmatu within the decision to distribute land to the employees of the Kurdistan Region, in accordance with the procedures followed in the municipalities of the Kurdistan Regional Government."
According to KRG statistics, more than 400,000 employees have registered themselves in the Hesabi project so far, in addition to providing 231 ATMs in various regions of the Kurdistan Region, and this number is expected to reach about 1,000 ATMs by the end of 2024.
The following are some of the services of the Hesabi banking project:
1- You can access hundreds of ATMs and withdraw all the user's funds at once and for free.
2- The devices are available for use around the clock, seven days a week, allowing employees to withdraw their money at any time they see fit.
3- A variety of different bank loans and advances can be obtained.
4- Debit cards can be used to make purchases online and through card readers known as (PoS).
5- The system allows secure and reliable transfers of funds inside and outside the country.
6- You can access the bank's mobile application to track your account movements and receive notifications on your phone when salaries arrive.
Economist: America has begun to abandon Iraq
Economic expert, Jalil Al-Lami, confirmed that America has begun to gradually abandon Iraq by restricting the use of the dollar and abandoning the purchase of Iraqi oil.
Al-Lami said that America decided to buy oil from Canada instead of Iraq, and also to restrict the use of the dollar, which are messages to the Iraqi government.
He added that the Iraqi government sent a delegation to settle the issues with America and end the dollar restriction.
Baghdad revives Amman's coffers.. Iraq is wasting wealth on normalizing countries
The question is renewed about the feasibility of selling Iraqi oil to Jordan at a preferential price in light of the continuing losses incurred by Iraq as a result of that agreement, estimated at more than 57 million dollars annually, which the specialists did not answer adequately, but rather revealed other shocking details, represented by Jordan's imposition of 10 percent taxes on... Goods that arrive in Iraq in exchange for oil being sold for $16 less than the world price, in addition to Iraq paying the preferential price difference to Jordan in cash if its world prices fall below $16.
Speaking about this file, former MP Ahmed Al-Kanani revealed the reason for exporting Iraqi oil to the Jordanian side with a small exaggeration.
Al-Kinani said in a statement to the “Al-Ma’louma” agency, “Over the past years, Iraq has been exporting oil to Jordan at a low price, as a result of clear American pressure to improve Jordan's economic benefit at the expense of Iraq, as it is a strategic ally of Washington,” noting that “it is embarrassing to give away Iraq's wealth.” To his enemies."
He added, "The American side is still interfering in Iraqi affairs by imposing agreements and dictates on Iraq to favor its Jordanian ally," calling on "the Sudanese government to be more aggressive in dealing with this file."
He explains, "There must be an Iraqi decision to limit the waste of Iraq's difficult work in this way and not waste Iraq's wealth," explaining that "Jordan's positions with the Iraqi people are considered very shameful."
He continues, "There must be a new policy against Jordan to stop this essential support at the expense of Iraq."
In addition, the oil expert, Hamza Al-Jawahiri, said in a statement to the “Al-Ma’louma” agency, that “the oil agreement with Jordan has been in place since the days of the previous regime, and stems from the fact that Jordan is a brotherly and economically weak country, so we must help it and stand by it, but in reality and in light of the government's continuation In this matter, the proverb applies to her: “The prince gave what he does not have.”
He points out that "large losses result from this agreement, especially with the rise in oil prices, estimated at about 5 million dollars per month, and this is in vain and Iraq can invest it in construction or other important projects."
Regarding the details of the preferential price at which Iraq sells oil to Jordan, Al-Jawahiri explains, “The agreement stipulates a fixed percentage. “If the global oil price, for example, is $14, Iraq sends oil to Jordan and pays two dollars per barrel as a difference to the price specified in the agreement, which is $16.”
Al-Jawahiri sarcastically says, “Our bridges, roads, electricity, and sewerage are complete and full, and we do not suffer from any lack of infrastructure, so we help countries in this way.”
It is noteworthy that Iraqi oil exports to Jordan have risen to about 15 thousand barrels per day under an agreement updating the previous agreement, which required the sale of 10 thousand barrels per day of Iraqi oil to Amman at prices about 16 dollars less than the price of a barrel during the month.
Kurdistan Finance announces depositing about 700 billion dinars into its account for the salaries of the region’s security forces
The Ministry of Finance and Economy in the Kurdistan Region announced today, Tuesday, that the federal government has deposited an amount of money amounting to nearly 700 billion dinars for the salaries of the security forces in the Kurdistan Region for the past months of May and June.
The ministry said in a statement received by "Al-Eqtisad News" that an amount of 676 billion and 36 million dinars was deposited in its bank account to finance the salaries of the months of May and June for the Peshmerga forces and the security services of the Kurdistan Region.
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