Iraq Economic News And Points To Ponder Saturday Afternoon 5-16-26
Baghdad Targets 500k Bpd Export Goal Via Turkiye Amid Increased Hormuz Risks
2026-05-16 Shafaq News- Baghdad Iraq’s new Oil Minister Basim Khudhair al-Abadi warned on Saturday that escalating regional tensions threaten energy flows through the Strait of Hormuz, as Baghdad moves to ramp up crude exports via Turkiye and address long-standing production disputes with the Kurdistan Region.
Speaking during a press conference at the ministry on his first day in office, he pointed to a sharp decline in exports, stating that Iraq shipped an average of 93 million barrels per month before the latest US-Iran escalation, while volumes fell to around 10 million barrels in April.
Despite the slowdown, Iraq continues to export around 200,000 bpd from Kirkuk through Turkiye’s Ceyhan port, with plans to raise flows to as much as 500,000 bpd. Achieving that target, he remarked, depends on the return of international oil companies operating in the Kurdistan Region, several of which have recently suspended operations.
“The government is treating the energy file in the Kurdistan Region as a priority,” he added, referring to efforts aimed at narrowing gaps between Baghdad and Erbil and aligning production frameworks across the country.
Khudhair noted that crude production from Basra and Kirkuk currently stands at no more than 1.4 million barrels per day (bpd), reflecting continued uncertainty in one of the country’s key economic sectors.
He also urged the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and the international community to support an increase in Iraq’s production ceiling, arguing that higher output is needed to fund infrastructure, public services, and state operating costs.
Read more: Iraq's oil lifeline is blocked: Here is why the crisis runs deeper than Hormuz
Dollar Dips In Baghdad, Rises In Erbil
2026-05-16 Shafaq News- Baghdad/ Erbil The US dollar closed Saturday's trading lower in Baghdad and higher in Erbil, hovering around 154,000 dinars per 100 dollars.
According to Shafaq News market survey, the dollar traded in Baghdad's Al-Kifah and Al-Harithiya exchanges at 153,800 dinars per 100 dollars, down from the morning session’s 153,900 dinars.
In the Iraqi capital, exchange shops sold the dollar at 154,250 dinars and bought it at 153,250 dinars, while in Erbil, selling prices stood at 153,600 dinars and buying prices at 153,500 dinars.
Speaking to Shafaq News, Jabbar Goran, spokesperson for the currency market in al-Sulaymaniyah, Iraqi Kurdistan, expected the formation of Iraq’s new government to help lower the dollar exchange rate against the dinar in local markets, citing anticipated “US support” that could positively affect the financial market.
Goran predicted the exchange rate could fall below 150,000 dinars per 100 dollars in the coming period if regional conditions stabilize. He added that the gap between the official exchange rate of 132,000 dinars and the market rate should normally remain within 12,000 to 13,000 dinars. https://www.shafaq.com/en/Economy/Dollar-dips-in-Baghdad-rises-in-Erbil
Gold Prices Slip In Baghdad And Erbil
2026-05-16 Shafaq News- Baghdad/ Erbil Gold prices fell Saturday in Baghdad and Erbil markets, hovering below the million-dinar mark, according to Shafaq News market survey.
On Baghdad's Al-Nahr Street, wholesale markets recorded a selling price of 982,000 IQD per mithqal (equivalent to five grams) for 21-carat Gulf, Turkish, and European gold, with a buying price of 978,000 IQD, down from the previous session's 1.012 million IQD.
Iraqi 21-carat gold sold at 952,000 IQD per mithqal, with a buying price of 948,000 IQD.
In jewelry stores, 21-carat Gulf gold ranged between 985,000 and 995,000 IQD per mithqal, while Iraqi gold sold between 955,000 and 965,000 IQD.
In Erbil, prices also declined, with 22-carat gold selling at 1.021 million IQD per mithqal, 21-carat at 975,000 IQD, and 18-carat at 835,000 IQD. https://www.shafaq.com/en/Economy/Gold-prices-slip-in-Baghdad-and-Erbil-5
Iraq’s Gulf Power Project To Supply 500 Megawatts
2026-05-16 Shafaq News- Baghdad/ Basra The Gulf electricity interconnection project with Iraq has reached 94% completion, with the first phase expected to supply 500 megawatts of additional electricity to the national grid, Iraq’s Electricity Ministry announced on Saturday.
The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states signed the implementation contract for the project in October 2024, aiming to supply Iraq with around 3.94 terawatt-hours of electricity annually at prices lower than domestic production costs. The project's original completion deadline of end-2025 was missed, with the launch subsequently pushed back without a revised date confirmed by officials.
Completed works include full construction of concrete tower foundations, installation of 112 out of 221 transmission towers within the Iraqi section, and the completion of 73 kilometers of power line wiring alongside 63 kilometers of Optical Ground Wire (OPGW) communications cable.
Technical teams from the South Electricity Transmission Company continue work on the 400-kilovolt interconnection line linking Kuwait’s Al-Wafra power station to the Al-Faw converter station in southern Iraq as part of what the ministry described as strategic projects aimed at supporting grid stability during the summer season. The project stretches approximately 285 kilometers, including 76.7 kilometers inside Iraqi territory from the Safwan border area to Al-Faw station.
Read more: Iraq power 2026: war collapses the grid's defenses ahead of peak summer
https://www.shafaq.com/en/Economy/Iraq-s-Gulf-power-project-to-supply-500-megawatts
PM Al-Zaidi Chairs First Financial Stability Council Meeting Hours After Launch
2026-05-16 Shafaq News- Baghdad Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi on Saturday chaired the first meeting of the newly established Financial Stability Council, only hours after ordering its creation during his cabinet’s inaugural session.
The council includes Finance Minister Falih al-Sari and the governor of the Central Bank of Iraq (CBI), Ali al-Alaq.
Al-Zaidi stressed the importance of financial stability and its impact on Iraq’s economic and development plans, calling for close coordination between the Finance Ministry and CBI. He also emphasized the need for financial decisions that support economic stability and strengthen the government’s service, development, and economic agenda.
What the Program Says?
Al-Zaidi's ministerial program commits to establishing a Supreme Council for Financial Stability to coordinate between fiscal and monetary policy, the body that held its first meeting on Saturday.
The program assigns the council a specific economic agenda: financial discipline, restructuring of public expenditure, enhancing non-oil revenues, and digitizing revenue collection in cooperation with relevant international institutions.
On banking, the program commits to reform aligned with international standards, anti-money laundering compliance, and structured coordination between the Central Bank and the fiscal authority.
The council is one of three new economic bodies mandated by the program. The other two are a Supreme Investment Council for foreign direct investment, and a Generations Fund to preserve Iraqi citizens' share of oil and natural resource revenues.
Read more: Ali Al-Zaidi sworn in with a program already failed
Who Stole Our Marble?
Mazhar Muhammad Salih Articles Economy News – Baghdad A heated intellectual debate raged in the corridors of research, where monetary policy was formulated in the heart of Baghdad. Marxists, graduates of British universities, argued with liberals, graduates of Iraqi universities, in a debate that spanned the 1950s and 1970s.
The central point of contention was the concept of the "public good"—that benefit created for all people, from which no one is excluded, and whose use by one individual does not diminish the rights of others, such as security, bridges, parks, and public lighting.
The name of Paul Samuelson was frequently invoked as one of the most prominent theorists of this concept in modern economics, as he argued that a state is not measured solely by its wealth, but also by its capacity to protect what belongs to everyone.
But the question that lingered above all that debate was even more brutal than the theories themselves:
Did people really need that extravagant display of civilization represented by the escalators in the Tahrir Square tunnel in the 1970s?
That tunnel, which was built as a symbol of modern Baghdad, is surrounded by shops in an elegant circular formation, and topped with captivating architectural details, until its walls and columns became covered with shiny Italian marble, as if the city wanted to give its citizens something of the dignity and beauty of great cities.
Marxists saw this as a victory for the idea of the common right.
In their view, beauty was not a privilege reserved for the wealthy alone, but a right for all people. They echoed Karl Marx's ideas about the alienation of individuals when their shared wealth is taken from them, and the fruits of society become the private property of a few. Liberals, on the other hand, considered it a luxury incompatible with an economy burdened by poverty and inequality, arguing that the state should spend on necessities, not on marble and escalators.
Then the years passed, wars followed one another, the electricity went out, the stairs broke down, the maintenance systems deteriorated, and Iraq entered the era of the long siege as a silent war, an era that not only destroyed the economy, but also destroyed the very meaning of things, until the “public good” became an orphaned entity with no one to protect it.
And the marble remained alone.
It shines with a sad silence in an empty tunnel, its whiteness reflected on the facades of empty shops, as if trying to remember the Baghdad that was once here.
Until one morning the city awoke to a heavy whisper circulating in our research circles:
The marble has disappeared.
The Italian marble that once adorned the Tahrir Square tunnel has vanished, replaced by drab, gloomy stones that have robbed the place of its last vestiges of beauty. Everyone stood stunned, Marxists and liberals alike, all intellectual distance between them suddenly collapsing before this painful truth:
Marble from the "public good" was smuggled to complete the decoration of a palace.
Thus, what was made for all people became the private property of one individual.
But the story didn't end with the tunnel. A few days later, one of the largest government buildings, clad in the same Italian marble, was stripped bare and replaced with somber, gloomy rocks, while fearful whispers spread the same truth:
State marble joined the tunnel marble, and settled there… in the same palaces.
Only then did it seem as though Baghdad was reliving all the philosophers' warnings at once. Jean-Jacques Rousseau believed that the erosion of justice begins when what is common among people is seized, because the social contract itself is based on upholding the common good, not usurping it.
Hannah Arendt, on the other hand, saw the erosion of the public sphere as beginning when the things that unite people become instruments of domination and privilege. At that point, cities not only lose their beauty but also their capacity to be a home for all. And then, the collapse of the public sphere signifies the decline of politics itself, its transformation into domination or fear.
Thus, the stolen marble was not merely white stone moved from one wall to another; it was a piece of the city's memory being silently torn away, a painful declaration of the transformation of "public property" from a shared right into plunder, from beauty belonging to the people into ornamentation belonging to the authorities.
And the ruin of a state begins when public affairs become tools in the hands of power or fear.
And the question remains, after all these years: When will the people's marble return to the people?
When will the state regain the meaning of public interest before it loses even its memory?