KTFA Members “News and Views” Saturday 12-4-2021

KTFA:

Samson Iraqi intelligence thwarts an attempt to smuggle the director of the Ahli United Bank through Baghdad airport

4th December, 2021

An informed security source said, on Saturday, that the Iraqi intelligence service thwarted an attempt to smuggle the director of the Ahli United Bank through Baghdad Airport.

The source told (Baghdad Today), "The Iraqi intelligence service managed to thwart the attempt to smuggle the director of the Ahli United Bank through Baghdad International Airport."

He added, "The smuggling attempt took place in exchange for sums of money, but private information from the Iraqi intelligence service led to the arrest of the director."

And he added, "The aforementioned person has been subject to travel ban orders due to financial embezzlement through forged instruments." LINK

DeepWoodz:  A financial official reveals the dollar exchange rates in the 2022 budget

12/04/2021 10:15:14

The former director of the Financial Supervision Bureau, "the dollar exchange rates remain unchanged in the 2022 budget."  LINK

IMO Investopedia : Dual or Multiple Exchange Rates

snippet…

When faced with a sudden shock to its economy, a country can opt to implement a dual or multiple foreign-exchange rate system. With this type of system, a country has more than one rate at which its currency is exchanged. So, unlike a fixed or floating system, the dual and multiple systems consist of different rates, fixed and floating, that are used for the same currency during the same period of time.

In a dual exchange rate system, there are both fixed and floating exchange rates in the market. The fixed rate is only applied to certain segments of the market, such as "essential" imports and exports and/or current account transactions. In the meantime, the price of capital account transactions is determined by a market-driven exchange rate (so as not to hinder transactions in this market, which are crucial to providing foreign reserves for a country).

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The use of multiple exchange rates has been seen as an implicit means of imposing tariffs or taxes. For example, a low exchange rate applied to food imports functions like a subsidy, while the high exchange rate on luxury imports works to "tax" people importing goods which, in a time of crisis, are perceived as non-essential. On a similar note, a higher exchange rate in a specific export industry can function as a tax on profits.

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Samson:  Corruption Topples Directors Of Departments And Departments In Diwaniyah

4th December, 2021

Diwaniyah Governor Zuhair Ali Al-Shaalan revealed, on Saturday, the dismissal of directors of departments and divisions due to financial and administrative corruption that has exhausted citizens, while stressing that the local government still gives the file of providing basic services that citizens need a priority.

Al-Shaalan said in an interview seen by "The Information", that "the local government still gives the file of providing basic services that the citizen needs a priority in its work program," noting that "the service departments continue to implement self-effort campaigns that include improving the level of services in residential neighborhoods.

He added, "It was agreed with the Italian ambassador to provide adequate facilities for Italian investment companies wishing to experience the investment in the province, including the implementation of irrigation projects, in addition to achieving advanced steps with the State of Sweden in activating investment by attracting its companies to obtain various investment opportunities, especially in the agricultural sector."

He pointed out that "a great success has been achieved in implementing the partnership experience between the province and the State of Sweden, which culminated in the announcement of Diwaniyah as the first Iraqi province to adopt electronic government in the field of money," stressing "the existence of a well-thought-out plan by the local government aimed at achieving a breakthrough in openness to developed countries to benefit from their capabilities and expertise to improve The economic and urban reality.

Regarding the agricultural issue and the repercussions of water scarcity, Al-Shaalan said that “the problem of water scarcity is dangerous for farmers and their families on the one hand, and the local market and citizens on the other hand,” noting “the need to implement modern irrigation projects that ensure that quantities of water reach the areas covered by the agricultural plan, in addition to the implementation of many Drilling works, cleaning streams and rivers, and implementing a large number of agricultural violations to preserve the water quota.

In the field of confronting financial and administrative corruption, Al-Shaalan said: “The local government has taken strict measures to eliminate administrative and financial corruption that has exhausted the citizens, as the measures related to oversight have been intensified remarkably and many directors of departments and departments have been dismissed due to corruption, negligence or negligence and others. The outlets concerned with citizens’ complaints and reported cases of corruption were activated to address it as soon as possible.”   LINK

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Samson:  Al-Kazemi’s advisor clarifies the details of the proposed sovereign wealth fund

4th December, 2021

The financial advisor to the Prime Minister, Mazhar Muhammad Salih, explained, today, Saturday, the details of the proposed sovereign wealth fund to be established in Iraq, while specifying the entity responsible for its management.

Saleh told the Iraqi News Agency (INA): "The world's sovereign wealth funds were established at least 6 decades ago and were built on the fact that the returns from the resources of the countries producing and exporting raw materials as financial surpluses have become an important part of capital wealth that can be invested, maximized and continuously increasing instead of consuming it with budgets. Large operational budgets in general annual budgets are mostly unproductive.”

He added, “The philosophy of defining those returns from raw resources such as oil and other depleted natural wealth is not necessarily for consumer spending, but rather it is a capital asset in itself, which requires their sustainability and maximizing their growth by investing for the benefit of the nation in a deep cumulative way for wealth itself and across generations, and based on that and in order to serve capital assets.

The current resulting from the revenues of raw materials, including oil wealth, the majority of the oil-producing countries in particular have established sovereign investment funds from their surpluses from oil revenues and employed them as capital in various investment assets, whether financial or real and generating income to increase the capital in them as a growing wealth for the benefit of the people “.

He continued: “Therefore, double returns in the form of income will accumulate within the investment of the resources of these sovereign funds in the form of an expanding capital wealth, realizing at the same time that the sovereign fund is an investment fund in nature, and thus the sovereign fund goes to a lofty goal, which is to maximize the nation’s depleted resources for the benefit of sustainable development goals from during the intergenerational continuation of economic prosperity.” He stressed that "the current generation should provide supplies for sustainable welfare for the next generation and in accordance with the best investment practices for the assets that will be included in the sovereign investment portfolio and within the framework of the sovereign wealth fund itself," explaining that "the sovereign wealth fund is often managed by the executive authority as a direct sovereign entity. And in cooperation between the country’s financial and monetary authorities, and the performance of the sovereign fund is monitored by legislators in the House of Representatives within the country’s legislative assets and control rules.”

He pointed out that “one of the most important themes that were discussed on the subject of the Iraqi sovereign fund in a symposium he held at the House of Wisdom last September focused on the dilemma (How can a deficit economy over the last 40 years establish a sovereign wealth fund?… Sovereign funds are a phenomenon that has emerged.” in surplus economies in general).
And he added: “The answer to this question is the adoption of a sovereign wealth fund directed to real investment inward within the framework of exceptional strategic economic and social development and in a different administrative style, which requires the presence of the state’s economic sovereignty again in the management of the economic project by moving the idle projects and idle wealth of the public and private sectors, that is, in partnership with the market and foreign investment, and this will lead to moving and developing the national economy and transforming it into an economy of sustainable surplus on investment activities that lead to diversification of the sectors of the economy.”

He noted that "the proposed inward-oriented sovereign fund is managed through a system similar to holding companies, as it was noted that the existing 80 sovereign funds around the world differ from state to state and from fund to fund."

He concluded his speech by saying: “In order to avoid legislative difficulties, it was proposed that the Iraqi Fund for Foreign Development in the Iraqi Ministry of Finance be the legal basis for managing the next sovereign wealth fund for Iraq after agreeing on the style, model and nature of the fund, whose money will necessarily be from the state’s wealth outside the general budget, mostly and in partnership financial and administrative with the natural and intangible wealth of persons.  LINK

Samson:  For the first time since the Abbasid era... Will Iraq witness a majority government free of interference?

4th December, 2021

The British "Middle East Monitor" website concluded in a report that the last time Iraq was free of external interference was during the Abbasid era, indicating that if the majority government was formed "neither Western nor Eastern", it would be the first in Iraq's history Contemporary as "independent".

And after the British report, translated by Shafak News Agency, pointed out that Iraqi patriots naturally demand that their country be free of foreign interference, which was expressed about the increasing political influence of Iran, as well as through perceptions of Iraq as a client state of the United States, he added that Iraq Since its recent history as a state, it has not really been an independent state.

The report indicated that it is possible to go back in history to pre-modern history, specifically to the Abbasid Caliphate (750 AD - 1258 AD) in the region that represents Iraq today and which was truly independent.

Despite this, the report pointed out that the Abbasid rulers were eventually marginalized and turned into a mere symbolic force in name only, with the real authority ceded to the dominant princes and ministers from the Persians and Seljuk Turks, as a result of the destabilization of the Abbasid rule starting in the middle of the ninth century.

The report explained that after a series of conquests and rule by successive dynasties, from the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, Iraq, especially Baghdad, changed control over it between the competing Ottoman and Safavid empires, and Iraq became a buffer zone between the Sunni and Shiite powers in the Middle East.

He continued, "When the Ottomans recaptured Baghdad and most of Iraq from the Safavids for the second time during the year 1638, it did not return to Persian control again, and remained under the control of the Ottomans until it fell under British rule in 1918 during the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire after World War I." .

The report added that an Iraqi kingdom was formed in the face of the revolutions across the country against the British mandate in 1920, a year later under the rule of the "foreign" King Faisal who was appointed by the British, in light of the concentration of power in the hands of the educated minority Sunni elite, as was the case in the era of The Ottomans.

After noting that the supposed "independence" of the kingdom from Britain did not occur until 1932, the report considered that "this does not mean that it was a sovereign country, since Britain, which intervened during World War II due to a pro-Nazi coup in 1941, restored The inauguration of King Faisal,” and the monarchy continued until the 1958 military coup that consolidated Iraq as a republic and declared the end of British influence in the country.

The report considered that Abdul Karim Qassem, the leader of the "July 14 Revolution", became the first prime minister of the republic, and it can be said that he was the first independent leader of contemporary Iraq.

The report saw that Abdul Karim Qasim's decision to withdraw from the pro-Western Baghdad Pact, establish stronger relations with the Soviet Union and rely heavily on the support of the Iraqi Communist Party, quickly contributed to its downfall, driven by resentment by Arab nationalists and the outbreak of a Kurdish revolution.

He considered that "there was no one more concerned than the United States, which had begun to show more interest in the region at the height of the Cold War, and the CIA had planned to assassinate Qassem, with a failed attempt in 1959, in which they participated, Saddam Hussein, the young man from among a group From five other Ba'athists, then Qassem was overthrown and executed in 1963 after the Ba'athist coup suspected of being supported by the CIA.

While the report referred to the beginning of Saddam Hussein’s reign in power, the outbreak of the revolution in Iran, and then the beginning of the Iraq-Iran war, the report pointed out that Iraq was again a buffer zone of some kind, this time, with the support of the West and the Gulf sheikhs, to serve as a Sunni fortress against Iran's threat to export its revolution in the region.

After the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, the report said that for the first time in its modern history, power shifted to the Shiite majority, and the government sided with Iran, which welcomed the removal of Saddam and glimpsed an opportunity to exercise its influence in the country. He noted that "the issue of Iraq's sovereignty and weakness as a state has remained a constant aspect of the post-2003 era," explaining, for example, that Turkey and Iran have repeatedly launched air strikes against Kurdish militias in the north. He pointed to Iran's role in supporting the Popular Mobilization Forces to counter the emergence of ISIS and its control over 40% of Iraqi lands, defeating it regionally and preventing it from reaching Baghdad and the important Shiite shrine cities in the south.

After pointing out that there was a question about the reason for the existence of the US embassy complex, the largest in the Vatican, and the largest in the world, the report considered that events show that "Iraq is still not an independent country since it gained independence and is still highly vulnerable to foreign interference in its affairs," recalling an assassination attempt. Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi.

The report concluded by noting that after Muqtada al-Sadr's meeting with the Shiite forces that challenged the election results, al-Sadr said on "Twitter" that the next Iraqi majority government would be free of foreign interference. The report stressed that "if this turns out to be true, it will be unprecedented in the contemporary history of Iraq."  LINK