Iraqi News Monday AM 12-7-20
Iraqi News Monday AM 12-7-20
TLM724 Administrator BondLady’s Corner
The Pope Of The Vatican Will Visit Iraq Next March
Time: 12/07/2020 14:07:59 Read: 2,028 times (Baghdad: Al Furat News) The Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that the Pope of the Vatican (Francis) will visit Iraq in March of next year.
A statement by the ministry, a copy of which was received by the Al Furat News Agency, stated, "We are pleased to announce that His Holiness Pope Francis, Pope of the Catholic Church, will visit Iraq for the period from 5 to 8 March 2021."
It indicated that "the Pope's visit to Iraq, Mesopotamia, the land of the messengers and the prophets, and the homeland of Ur and the Prophet Abraham, represents a historical event and support for all Iraqis of all kinds."
The statement added, "The visit also represents a message of peace to Iraq and the entire region, and affirms the unity of the humanitarian position in confronting extremism and conflicts, and promotes diversity, tolerance and coexistence." LNK
Financial Crisis And Reform Wishes
Khaled Al-Thawrani101 2020-12-07 Khaled Al-Tharawani Voices rise and opinions accumulate whenever a financial crisis looms over Iraq with the need to support agriculture, revive industry and revitalize tourism, as if those who called for the above wanted to give a kiss to life for the dying Iraqi economy day and night, and put all the factors of time and the interactions of politics, energy and water, with the economy file behind their backs!
Will agriculture be a savior for the empty Iraqi budget and the unbalanced national economy? If we look deeply into all the determinants facing agricultural development, we find that the area of the country cannot cultivate strategic crops in it in a manner that is sufficient for the needs of the people and export the surplus to be an economic tributary. Iraq is not Russia, Canada, or Australia in terms of area, so it is not met, neither land nor climate For economic, refreshing crops for treasury.
The other determinant is the water that is scarce in the summer and is not even sufficient for drinking, after Turkey built many dams on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, which led to a lack of water access to agricultural lands. Also, agriculture in Iraq is still adopting primitive methods and the introduction of modern technology is very slow, resulting in fewer crops at the expense of space, and therefore the product is not sufficient for local need as well as for export.
As for the industrial side, we run into more problems. The infrastructure of Iraqi industry has not happened most of it since the seventies of the last century, and it depends on the plans of the government of Abdul Karim Qassem until the confrontational war on Iran that destroyed everything, and the machines and machines suffered from extinction, sabotage and disruption during the period from 2003 until now. In addition to that, Iraq suffers from an energy crisis that has been going on for three decades.
The electricity produced is not sufficient for domestic use as well as for industrial use. In addition, there are neither the raw materials needed to start moving the wheel of production nor the manpower capable of starting the industry in a manner that can save the country at the speed that the wish-holders envision, especially in light of the proportionality of production disbursements with the importer's prices.
And by asking another question, what do we manufacture, what is its price, what is the price of the raw materials needed to manufacture it, and what is the cost of labor on it? For example, making one kilogram of paste requires eight kilos of tomatoes, in addition to packaging, industry, energy, workers, and transportation. How much does it reach the consumer compared to its imported counterpart, which reaches the citizen with only a thousand dinars!
As for the tourism aspect, it is lost between the hotels of the private sector, the state bureaucracy, government corruption and the systematically destructive legacy of the fallen Baathist regime. We do not find an archaeological site except for placing the head of the buried regime in it, ruining it and tampering with its history, so it is not yet qualified to be invested. As for religious tourism, it cannot be relied upon to the degree that we imagine because of the wrong administrative policies and the seasonality of its activity.
Corruption is marred by the control of the private sector, especially in the transport and hotel sectors. Indeed, it is not possible to develop the sectors that generate national income and support the budget without creating an identity for the country's economic system and developing theoretical plans for future development and development away from oil.
Resorting to external borrowing or pressure on the salaries of employees is nothing but a mere thinking of the decision-makers, because Iraq suffers from a defect in construction as a state and an economic system and a lack of planning for many years now whose problems have become evident. Hiring hundreds of thousands annually has produced convincing unemployment and the Iraqi employee "provides (17) One minute of actual work per day, "according to a senior government official.
As well as the huge disparities in salaries, privileges and poor distribution of wealth, especially with regard to the share of the Kurdistan region, which consumes a quarter of Iraq’s budget without handing over a single penny to the federal treasury.
Iraq is on the verge of difficult days after the drop in oil prices, on which it depends almost completely, the outbreak of the Corona epidemic and previous wars, and this should draw the attention of the Iraqi official to developing the plans and programs necessary to get out of the crisis with the least losses and draw a future roadmap for the advancement of the Iraqi economy by controlling Currency and circulation, reduction of government jobs, privatization of service sectors and the trend towards an economic system away from the bureaucracy of socialism or injustice of capitalism, that is, by activating the joint sector and the state has control over projects by half for the purpose of preserving the dignity of workers from exploitation.
Also, one of the proposed solutions that could benefit the industrial sector is to reduce the price of the currency against the dollar and stop the auction of selling the dollar due to the smuggling of hard currency and huge money laundering that some political parties practice with unnecessary imports.
Whereas, the Integrity Commission, in conjunction with the Bureau of Financial Supervision and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, should prosecute the corrupt abroad and confiscate their money abroad, as well as seize control of it at home.
If you want to build a state, Mr. Responsible, "do not be soft, then squeeze or dry, and it will break." In light of this crisis, the country is in need of bold decisions that save the poor from hunger.
Cleansing border crossings, customs and ports of corruption and the control of economic committees, especially since "ninety percent of Iraqi customs revenues go to the corrupt instead of reaching the state coffers," according to a statement by a member of the Parliamentary Finance Committee, as well as telecommunications and internet companies that generate billions away from Governmental tax oversight. Here we find that governments can find solutions away from pressure on the citizen and his power. http://burathanews.com/arabic/economic/381919
An Invitation To Recover Iraq's Foreign Debts
Monday 07 December 2020 34 Baghdad: Mustafa Al-Hashemi and Shukran Al-Fatlawi At a time when Iraq needs to provide additional financial resources to the treasury, a specialist in economic affairs called the Iraqi Fund for Foreign Development, affiliated to the Ministry of Finance, to move to recover debts owed by a group of developing countries for the benefit of Iraq.
The Iraqi Fund for External Development was established in the seventies of the last century. Under Law No. 77 of 1974, the second article of the law specified the actions that the Iraqi Fund aims to achieve,which serve Iraq, and support a number of developing countries.
The specialist in economic affairs, Dr. Ahmed Abrihi, said in an interview with “Al-Sabah” that “the Ministry of Finance worked on this file for some time, explaining that“ these debts were during the days of booming oil resources, and the Ministry of Finance tried to recover these funds, but the problem is that the amounts are granted to poor countries, which are It amounts to one and a half billion dollars.
Abrihi added, "Usually poor countries ask for the restructuring of these debts in the event that they are difficult to pay," noting that "it is possible to benefit from them, at least, by importing goods and products from those countries that we benefit from or part of them, especially those countries that find it difficult to repay them." Create a market for its goods ”.
According to the fund, there are 7 developing countries that borrowed from Iraq and have to pay off their debts, namely Jamaica (the remaining amount is $ 6.270 million), Mauritania (the remaining amount is $ 626,000), Yemen (the remaining amount is $ 2.345 million) and Somalia (the remaining amount is $ 28.804 million).
Dollars), Uganda (remaining $ 2.606 million), Tanzania (remaining $ 8.162 million), Mozambique (remaining $ 10.258 million).
It is noteworthy that each of (Somalia, Tanzania and Mozambique) has not paid any amount since the borrowing.
For its part, the economic researcher called Lubna Al-Shammari to employ these debts and study the possibility of those countries coming to Iraq and investing in it or providing goods, products or services that the country needs, as long as its debts cannot be paid.
She added that "most of these loans are development loans to those countries, Iraq had given them days of financial abundance in previous periods."
Al-Shammari saw "the possibility of providing expertise and technical assistance in various fields of economic development in Arab countries and developing countries."
Article 2 of the Fund Law / 7 / A stipulates following-up on Iraq's external, multilateral and bilateral financial relations, and everything related to managing its contributions in international, regional and Arab joint organizations, funds, bodies and companies, and all its money is related to loan agreements and agreements.Tax.
While it was stated in Paragraph B of the Law (obligating the relevant ministries and their representatives in international, regional and Arab joint organizations, funds, bodies and companies to coordinate with the Fund in managing and following up on Iraq's investments and its foreign contributions). LINK
Compliance, Governance And Digital Transformation
Monday 07 December 2020 27 Muhammad Sharif Abu Maysam The vision regarding economic reform in the country may differ among politicians, specialists and observers, according to their intellectual and ideological orientations, but they may converge on three basic concepts, namely (compliance, governance and digital transformation) as unquestioned participants when implementing any reform program.
The first of these concepts pulls us at first towards the banking sector, as a concept that refers to one of the important tools in the management system for this sector, according to which the compliance monitor and the entities affiliated with the central bank follow up and monitor the bank’s performance and the extent to which this performance matches the standards, laws and agreements that regulate the work of the banking industry.
In order to achieve the goal for which the banking sector was found, but this concept can also apply to the business environment and the market as a whole, as the requirement that all economic units and formations comply with laws, standards and regulations, is a fundamental goal to build correct relationships between market elements and thus regularize these relationships in a way that serves All market parties,
while the concept of good governance or good management includes several criteria represented in transparency, as it is a conditional standard for all forms of performance in the overall scene or within private and public institutions and companies, and this standard is always linked to the standard of disclosure, as one complements the other, especially in the performance of companies And institutions beside the standard of bearing responsibility and not evading it,
granting accountability to everyone and dropping immunity for everyone who performs a public or private function, and limiting the exploitation of power in a non-public interest, so that the criteria for fairness and efficiency will be achieved, for the application of the previous standards, which drives an increase Trust between all institutional formations and market elements, and contributes to advancing the wheel of life, developing investments and taking into account the interests of everyone.
On the other hand, the rise of governance standards and its link to compliance with laws contributed to digital transformation, in a way that overthrew all the administrative slack circles and accelerated the processes of exchange and trading in a spectacular way in countries That has undergone this transformation.
As digital transformation does not mean using e-mail instead of paper mail, rather it means increasing efficiency in performance in a way that reduces the possibility of error and increases productivity, so that technologies are exploited to reduce the manifestations of corruption, and the time in providing services and enhances the capabilities to keep pace with development, As a shift in the pattern of education and scientific research, it is not possible to go into this transformation by merely introducing technologies into institutional formations and public and private facilities, without upgrading the educational base, which establishes the investment in human energies. LINK
Morbidity And The Elements For The Advancement Of The Private Sector
Monday 07 December 2020 25 Baghdad: Haider al-Rubaie The economic expert, Bassem Jamil Antoine, confirmed that the issuance of legislation and laws and follow-up of their implementation will move the wheel of the private sector and enable it to contribute to sustainable development processes, calling at the same time to establish a "private sector council" that includes people with long experience working in this sector.
Market economy
Antoine believes, during his speech to “Al-Sabah” that “Iraq's economy is still hovering over the trend towards a market economy, despite the presence of some seriousness with the Ministry of Planning in this regard, which requires a real will in the state and interest in developing the private sector, and we should not rely on statements only.” .
He pointed out that «many government strategies aimed at the advancement of the private sector, developed in previous years, the last of which was in 2014 and approved by the Council of Ministers, but were frozen at that time,» indicating the need for «belief in the role of the private sector as part of society and its potential to advance the economy, and that It constitutes 50-60 percent of all sectors Productivity".
Private Sector Council
Antoine suggested forming a "private sector council" that would include experienced people with a long experience in working in this sector, provided they enjoy integrity, "pointing out at the same time to" the importance of having a private sector unit that includes all the actors in it from industrialists, contractors, agriculturalists and tourists. " Who can form the basis for setting the correct visions for the work of the private sector. ”
Antoine stressed "the need for legislation to support and harmonize with the social market economy," noting that "the Ministry of Planning has a five-year plan aimed at promoting sustainable development and the social market economy, and that its success necessitates the existence of legislation capable of assigning broad tasks to the private sector with the aim of economic advancement." "Some of these legislations exist, but they need revisions to be in line with this stage, as we are still working with the private sector with the mentality of the socialist state."
The economic expert explained, "If the private sector had granted it the necessary guarantees, and obtained a distinguished position in the economic map, the country would not have gone through this current crisis that prompted it to borrow from home and abroad, expressing his regret that there is no" sufficient determination of the state "to grant the private sector A distinctive role, indicating that the per capita productivity in the private sector is doubled compared to its counterpart in the public sector. LINK
Salih Informs The Ambassadors Of The Security Council States That Iraq Rejects The Reflection Of Regional Tensions On Its Internal Stability
Time: 12/07/2020 17:34:43 Read: 390 times While receiving ambassadors of permanent members of the Security Council ... President of the Republic: The need to protect the sovereignty of Iraq, and support it in continuing its efforts to combat terrorism
Barham Salih, the President of the Republic, received today, Monday, December 7, 2020, ambassadors of the five permanent members of the Security Council accredited to Baghdad, in the presence of Minister of Foreign Affairs Fouad Hussein, and during the meeting they discussed internal and regional developments.
Emphasis was placed on the need to protect Iraq's sovereignty, support its stability, consolidate the state’s authority to enforce the law, protect the security and stability of citizens, and support the country in continuing its efforts to eradicate terrorism, with the importance of reducing tensions in the region, and keeping Iraq away from the effects of regional conflicts.
The meeting touched on the upcoming elections, and it was emphasized the need to ensure their integrity, and to provide all the necessary conditions that give their results credibility as a fateful election, in order for their outputs to express the will of the voters away from fraud, manipulation and pressure, and the need to support the United Nations Mission for Iraq in providing support And coordination of the Independent Electoral Commission and achieve the required supervision and oversight in order to achieve integrity and transparency in the various stages of its conduct.
The President of the Republic said that Iraq affirms its endeavor to protect its sovereignty and enhance its stability, and its firm stance on the need to prevent tensions in the region and distance from conflicts, and firmly rejects their repercussions on its internal security and stability, and supports regional and international cooperation to establish peace and limit conflicts that undermine stability in the region. And its repercussions to the Iraqi interior.
For their part, the ambassadors affirmed the commitment of their governments to support the security and stability of Iraq and to strengthen its sovereignty, and to provide the necessary support in order to help in combating terrorism, in facing the economic challenges facing the country, and to strengthening bilateral and joint cooperation in various fields. LINK
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