KTFA:

Samson:  Deputy reveals huge numbers of money smuggled by Saddam's regime

2nd February, 2021

A member of the Economic Committee in the Iraqi Parliament, Mazen Al-Faily revealed, today, Tuesday, the amount of money smuggled out of Iraq during the era of Saddam Hussein's regime.

Al-Faili told Shafaq News, "The money smuggled by Iraq during the era of the former regime amounts to $ 500 billion, which is equivalent to the 5-year budget in the current Iraq situation."

He added, "This money is found in most of the large European banks."

"Iraq needs modern legal legislation, and international experts are brought in to study how to recover this money, as the country is in dire need of it at the present time," he said.  LINK

Samson:  Ex-official: One billion and 200 million enter Karbala every month, and no one knows where it was spent

18:50 - 01/31/2021

A member of the dissolved Karbala Provincial Council, Nasser Al-Khazali, revealed, on Sunday, that one billion and 200 million dinars entered the governorate per month as local revenue without knowing the doors of its disbursement.

Khazali told Al-Maalouma agency that "the local administration receives one billion and 200 million dinars every month as local income from the owners of trucks carrying construction materials from quarries without knowing any supervisory authority about the doors of their disbursement."

Khazali added that "this money was spent in the past in the doors of projects and humanitarian and health cases, but today no one has revealed the doors of its disbursement."

He pointed out that, "despite the fact that the truck owners pay these large sums of money every month, the road leading to the quarries is ridiculous and unfit for wheels and has got hundreds of accidents due to its poor condition."   LINK

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Samson:  The International Islamic Bank announces its joining of the Bani Arab Payments platform

2nd February, 2021

The International Islamic Bank announced that it has joined the Bani Arab Payments platform, which is supervised by the Arab Monetary Fund

The bank said, on its Facebook page, seen by "Al-Eqtisad News", "The Islamic International Bank announces the completion of all operational requirements for the connection with the Bunaa Arab Payments platform, affiliated to the Regional Corporation for Arab Payments Clearing and Settlement owned by the Arab Monetary Fund

The bank added, "Bona is a platform that provides real-time clearing and settlement services for cross-border financial transfers between Arab countries and in Arab and international currencies

He noted that the most important characteristic of this platform is the competitive costs in exchange for the financial transfer, which will contribute to shortening the time and effort of the customer, noting that some of the features of the platform include financial transfer at reduced costs, and the transfer in Arab currencies such as the UAE dirham, Egyptian pound, Kuwaiti dinar, Jordanian dinar and Saudi riyal and international ones, including the US dollar and the euro. The bank confirmed that the service will be launched on the tenth of this month

On January 4, 2021, the Central Bank announced the actual launch of the adoption of the Iraqi dinar in the Buna platform for inter-Arab payments

The central bank said, "The platform works to provide real-time clearing and settlement services for cross-border financial transfers between Arab countries and in Arab and international currencies," noting that "the first movement has been implemented through banks between the UAE and the Arab Republic of Egypt, in the currency of the UAE dirham

He added, "The Central Bank of Iraq had previously signed an agreement with a number of local banks and completed the technical requirements to participate in the project in coordination with the Arab Monetary Fund," stressing that "work is underway to adopt the Iraqi dinar in the system for the next stage

He pointed out that "banks will be able to participate in Arab countries in sending and receiving payments between them in a safe and reliable manner, while this platform will help reduce recourse to international centers from correspondent banks in clearing and settling Arab payments, which will contribute to reducing the time and costs associated with banks and their customers   LINK

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Don961:  The World Bank: A global initiative to recover smuggled Iraqi funds explained the strategic objective of changing the exchange rate

February 1, 2021 8:00 pm  Author: alzawraapaper Baghdad / Al-Zawra'a Follow-up:

The World Bank confirmed that changing the exchange rate of the Iraqi dinar against the US dollar gives the state the ability to increase its revenues and face imports from abroad. While he indicated that his financial portfolio in Iraq currently amounts to two billion dollars, he revealed a global initiative that the World Bank is working on to recover money smuggled from countries.

The Special Representative of the World Bank Mission in Iraq, Rabagdad / Al-Zawra'a Follow-up, said:
The World Bank confirmed that changing the exchange rate of the Iraqi dinar against the US dollar gives the state the ability to increase its revenues and confront imports from abroad.

While he indicated that his financial portfolio in Iraq currently amounts to two billion dollars, he revealed a global initiative that the World Bank is working on to recover money smuggled from countries.

The Special Representative of the World Bank Mission in Iraq, Ramzi Numan, said in an interview published by the Iraqi government news agency, which was seen by Al-Zawraa: “The partnership relationship between the World Bank and Iraq is very close and is based on years of joint work,” pointing out that “Iraq enjoys A very important position at the Arab and global level, and that the World Bank was next to Iraq in the various stages of stability and peace, or in the stages that it was subjected to attacks or changing economic conditions, which led to difficult repercussions on the government and people of Iraq, and the actual work began with Iraq, I believe in 2006 and 2007 through a group of projects.

He added that "the World Bank's portfolio in Iraq currently amounts to two billion dollars, and that these loans were signed about two or three years ago," noting that "the main pillar in it is a loan for the reconstruction of liberated areas, and the result of the request came after the beginning of the first phase of liberation, that is." Liberation of Salah al-Din Governorate, and then this was completed with an additional amount after liberating the rest of the governorates.

And that "this current portfolio in Iraq includes projects under implementation and projects or loans due, and that the World Bank is working to implement projects associated with them."

And on changing the exchange rate of the dollar in the Iraqi currency auction, he pointed out that "changing the exchange rate aims to give the state the ability to increase its revenues, especially since the sale of petroleum in hard currency and converting it into the reality of the Iraqi dinar gives it a financial mass that allows it to actually increase revenues and reduce the deficit." He pointed out that "changing the exchange rate may allow confronting imports from abroad because the domestic product becomes cheaper than what is imported from neighboring countries."

He explained that "the strategic objective of changing the exchange rate is to work to strengthen the local product and local industries to be able to face the external product, reinforced by measures to protect the product."

He stressed "the need to address the increase in prices and the seriousness of inflation, and focus on projects that actually allow facing the social distress of the poor."

He continued that "the idea of ​​raising the price of the dollar is an international policy that the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Planning and the Iraqi government have participated in, especially the International Monetary Fund," explaining that "Iraq is now in the plight of financial deficit, it has nothing but borrowing, either internal or external," indicating that “Internal borrowing threatens the reserves of the central bank, just as using it to bridge the deficit removes the possibility of investment in productive opportunities that allow the development of the private sector, while external borrowing has its components and conditions that are based on the sustainability of the debt and the capabilities in subsequent repayment, and financial and monetary stability, and this is the financial engineering that must be looked at. In an integrated way, one can consider reducing the currency rate.

He revealed "there is a global initiative that a team from the World Bank is working on in coordination with international organizations to recover money smuggled from countries," announcing that special departments of the Ministry of Finance have been linked to the World Bank's initiative, indicating that "the World Bank is ready to provide technical support."

Mazy Numan, in an interview published by the Iraqi government news agency, and seen by Al-Zawraa: “The partnership relationship between the World Bank and Iraq is very close and is based on years of joint work,” pointing out that “Iraq enjoys a very important position at the Arab and global level, and that The World Bank was next to Iraq in various stages of stability and peace, or in the stages that it was subjected to attacks or changing economic conditions, which led to difficult repercussions on the government and people of Iraq, and actual work began with Iraq, I think, in the years 2006 and 2007 through a group of projects.

He added that "the World Bank's portfolio in Iraq currently amounts to two billion dollars, and that these loans were signed about two or three years ago," noting that "the main pillar in it is a loan for the reconstruction of liberated areas, and the result of the request came after the beginning of the first phase of liberation, that is." Liberation of Salah al-Din Governorate, and then this was completed with an additional amount after liberating the rest of the governorates.

And that "this current portfolio in Iraq includes projects under implementation and projects or loans due, and that the World Bank is working to implement projects associated with them."

And on changing the exchange rate of the dollar in the Iraqi currency auction, he pointed out that "changing the exchange rate aims to give the state the ability to increase its revenues, especially since the sale of petroleum in hard currency and converting it into the reality of the Iraqi dinar gives it a financial mass that allows it to actually increase revenues and reduce the deficit."

He pointed out that "changing the exchange rate may allow confronting imports from abroad because the domestic product becomes cheaper than what is imported from neighboring countries."

He explained that "the strategic objective of changing the exchange rate is to work to strengthen the local product and local industries to be able to face the external product, reinforced by measures to protect the product."

He stressed "the need to address the increase in prices and the seriousness of inflation, and focus on projects that actually allow facing the social distress of the poor."

He continued that "the idea of ​​raising the price of the dollar is an international policy that the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Planning and the Iraqi government have participated in, especially the International Monetary Fund," explaining that "Iraq is now in the plight of financial deficit, it has nothing but borrowing, either internal or external," indicating that “Internal borrowing threatens the reserves of the central bank, just as using it to bridge the deficit removes the possibility of investment in productive opportunities that allow the development of the private sector, while external borrowing has its components and conditions that are based on the sustainability of the debt and the capabilities in subsequent repayment, and financial and monetary stability, and this is the financial engineering that must be looked at. In an integrated way, one can consider reducing the currency rate.

He revealed "there is a global initiative that a team from the World Bank is working on in coordination with international organizations to recover money smuggled from countries," announcing that special departments of the Ministry of Finance have been linked to the World Bank's initiative, indicating that "the World Bank is ready to provide technical support."    link

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Samson:  Oil prices are rising and expectations are to reach $ 65

2nd February, 2021

Oil prices rose nearly 1 percent on Tuesday, after major producers showed they were cutting crude production in line with their previous commitments, supporting a market that was decommissioned due to weak demand during the coronavirus pandemic

Brent crude rose 61 cents, or 1.10 percent, to $ 56.95 a barrel by 05:14 GMT, while US oil rose 62 cents, or 1.12, to $ 54.15 a barrel. Both contracts rose by more than 2% in the previous session

On the other hand, a survey showed that OPEC oil production rose for the seventh month in a row in January after the organization and its allies agreed to further ease supply restrictions, although production growth was smaller than expected

US government data last week showed a drop of 2.3 million barrels in crude stocks at the US crude futures delivery center in Cushing, Oklahoma. Analysts and dealers said that stocks are expected to record another weekly decline of the same amount

Goldman Sachs said oil prices could rise to $ 65 a barrel by July, expecting a shortfall of 900,000 barrels per day in supply in the oil market in the first half of 2021, a figure higher than its previous forecast of 500,000 barrels per day

Oil continues to face a challenging short-term demand environment amid concern that the new variants of Covid-19 will lead to more lockdowns, as vaccine launches are not going as smoothly as expected in some countries. The recent resurgence of the virus in Asia has led to a fragile recovery in transportation fuels  LINK

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Samson:  Representative economy: High oil prices will contribute to overcoming the deficit

2nd February, 2021

A member of the Parliamentary Economic and Investment Committee, Hamid Al-Mousawi, confirmed, on Tuesday, reducing the budget amounts to the level at which it would be possible to bridge the budget deficit, pointing out that high oil prices will contribute to overcoming the deficit.

Mousawi said in a press interview, "The House of Representatives has monitored many paragraphs in the budget that include large expenditures, and today it is working to reduce its total amount to approximately 110 trillion dinars and reduce more than 50 trillion."

He added that "the deficit is likely to range between 20-25 trillion, and this matter is compensated for through high oil prices, especially as there is a recovery in prices."

And that "some paragraphs of the budget and despite the allocation of their sums, but they will not be implemented on the ground, and therefore what is allocated to it contributes to bridging the imaginary budget deficit." LINK