TNT:

Tishwash:  This article is from 2016. It’s a great reminder of how far we have come.

Raising the three zeros from the Iraqi currency and the interim evaluation (2016 Article)

Amer Al-Abadi

The value of the Iraqi dinar began to be worth (7) grams of gold at the beginning of its issuance according to the issuance law in the year 1931, and in 1959 a new law was issued for the Iraqi national currency, and  the Iraqi monetary and banking system continued to develop, and the value of the Iraqi dinar reached (3.3) dollars until the beginning of the war. With Iran, which led to a major collapse in the Iraqi currency

In 2004, the former Governing Council replaced the previous currency, which symbolized the previous regime, with a new currency that is currently in circulation, and the currency was dealt with in seven denominations: 50, 250, 500, 1,000, 10,000, and 25,000 dinars.

Unlike Arab countries, there have been no coins in Iraq for about 25 years. 

The project to delete the three zeros was scheduled to be completed in 2011, but it was not completed, then it was postponed to 2013, then postponed to 2015, and now the plan is scheduled to be implemented in early 2017, noting that the process of deleting the zeros took place in several countries.

Three zeros were deleted from the Zimbabwean dollar in 2006. Romania deleted four zeros from its currency in 2005. Bolivia deleted three zeros from its currency in 2008. Turkey deleted six zeros from its currency in 2005. Sudan deleted two zeros from its currency in 2007.

Central Bank Director Mahdi Al-Alaq said, saying: “The central bank began the first steps of the project by choosing the designs, companies and country in which the currencies will be printed.”

He pointed out that "the introduction of the new currency does not mean destroying the old currencies, but they will continue in circulation for about ten years," pointing out that "this period will enable the central bank to withdraw the old currency according to the known dynamics in order to preserve liquidity in the market."

 Justifications for the replacement process

 1. The existence of a large monetary block worth 30 trillion dinars, with a number of 4 billion notes.  

 2. Currently, the largest denomination of cash is 25 thousand dinars, equivalent to approximately 21 dollars, and this requires a large volume and effort to settle daily transactions, so the amounts that exceed 20 in value are now Million is made in dollars.

 3. The presence of damage to a large percentage of the currency, especially the small denominations, and their inadmissibility in circulation, which constitute approximately one-third of the monetary mass. 

 4. The difficulty of performing calculations in light of numbers with more than 14 zeros from a practical and technical standpoint, and the possibility of an error occurring, whether adding or deleting a zero.

 Benefits of the exchange process

 1. Security: It reduces the risks resulting from carrying large sums of money.

 2. The costs of counting, sorting, and auditing will decrease if larger denominations are issued.     

 3. Raising the zeros will create a psychological impact on the citizen by strengthening his currency and adopting it more widely instead of foreign currency   

 4. Including the Iraqi dinar in the basket of global currencies and dealing in it officially on the world’s stock exchanges and financial markets.

5. The possibility of concluding economic agreements to deal in the national currency, and this will cover a very large portion of foreign transfers, which are a waste of the national wealth of hard currencies.

6. Manipulation of the currency exchange market will be eliminated

 7. The work of corrupt suspicious banks and their agents and brokers will stop.

 8. A higher ceiling will be set for the amounts transferred abroad from the active exchange currency to ensure that the currency is not smuggled.

 9. Changing the currency affects the psychological aspect represented by the desire for a currency with a high exchange rate. This rise brings joy to the return of the dinar to its rich past.

 Disadvantages of the replacement process:

1. The emergence of a mathematical problem between the old and new numbers in transactions and in reading and managing trillion numbers.

2. The need to print large denominations.

3. Foreign shares of the stock exchange will decrease by 20% because foreign investors believe that changing the currency will reduce profits.

4. Removing three zeros from the currency may contribute to creating a state of monetary illusion  

 5. It will cost the state budget large sums of money, in addition to being a door to financial corruption, in addition to not addressing the problem of financial inflation because the Iraqi market imports all goods and services from abroad, which means a drain on hard currencies.

6. There is no official data on the cost of Iraqi banknotes. Note that the cost of a banknote in Britain is 7 US cents. It is sufficient to know the number of notes in circulation to give an idea of the total cost.

7. Four billion notes. Thus, the cost of printing them becomes 289 million dollars. This amount is huge 

8. Add to that another amount to mint coins, not to mention the money needed to face the consequences of deleting zeros, such as replacing postage and financial stamps.

9. Feeling poor: Deleting zeros makes a person feel poor, as someone who had ten million dinars now only has ten thousand of them

10. Expecting prices to rise.

11. In light of the inevitability of introducing the Kurdish language to the first issue of the currency after the new constitution comes into effect, it is necessary to benefit from the experiences of other currencies.

 For example, the euro is the currency of many peoples in Europe, but it does not contain any language, only symbols, numbers and pictures.

 Amer Al-Abadi   11/15/2016

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