Sunday Morning Iraq Economic News Highlights 6-4-23
Sunday Morning Iraq Economic News Highlights 6-4-23
The House Of Representatives Holds A Session On Tuesday To Vote On The Budget
June 4, 2023 Baghdad / Obelisk Al-Hadath: A parliamentary source stated that the House of Representatives will set today the date for the voting session on the draft financial budget law.
The source said, "The parliament presidency will determine, after about two hours, the holding of the voting session on the budget next Tuesday at exactly one o'clock in the afternoon."
Informed sources reported that the coordination framework and the State Administration Coalition agreed to pass the draft financial budget law in the middle of this week. https://almasalah.com/archives/54795
Independent Deputy For / Nina /: The Budget Will Be Approved Within Days, Despite The Democratic Party's Disagreement With Most Of The Amendments That Were Made To It
Sunday 04, June 2023 Economical Number of readings: 461 Baghdad / NINA / - Independent MP Kazem Al-Fayyad confirmed: The budget was submitted to the Presidency, pending the determination of the voting session, which will be within days.
He told the National Iraqi News Agency / NINA /: The majority of deputies approved it after making several amendments to it, most of which did not obtain the approval of the Kurdistan Democratic Party.
Al-Fayyad added: The budget will be passed by majority vote.
And the Parliamentary Finance Committee announced that it had completed the draft state budget law for the current year and the next two years and submitted it to the Presidency of Parliament to determine the voting session./ https://ninanews-com.translate.goog/Website/News/Details?Key=1057515&_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en
A legal expert explains the extent of the powers of the Finance Committee and its procedures regarding the region
Information / Baghdad... The legal expert, Ali Al-Tamimi, explained the powers of the Parliamentary Finance Committee and its procedures regarding the federal budget, the region, transfers, and the increase or decrease in expenditures.
Al-Tamimi told / information /, that "the Finance Committee has the right to transfer between the chapters of exchange in the budget, and it is not entitled to increase expenditures, i.e. it has the right to organize exchange operations and change them in a manner that is within the limits of what is specified by the Ministry of Finance and the Council of Ministers."
He added, "What the Finance Committee did to oblige the Kurdistan region to export oil through the SOMO company and not to pay the region its share of the money beyond that, is a procedure consistent with Federal Court decision 59 of 2012, which obligated the region to export through the aforementioned company."
And he indicated that "the decisions of the Federal Supreme Court are final and binding on all authorities, and determining the bank in which the export revenues are deposited is also related to regulatory matters, since the Rafidain Bank is governmental, so it is preferable to place oil imports in it."
And he stressed that "the Finance Committee's procedure agrees with Articles 93 of the House of Representatives' internal system, Article 62 of the Constitution, and the decision of the Federal Supreme Court 59 above, and the matter after that is decided by a vote by Parliament when these amendments are presented for a vote of acceptance or whether or not to keep the version of the amendment." LINK
There Is No Room For Development By Relying On The World Bank
June 4, 2023 Baghdad / Obelisk event: Peace be upon you
The Sudanese government has remained silent about US President Joe Biden's decision to extend the state of emergency in Iraq, which was issued about two weeks ago. Until now, the government, the legislative authority, and even the resistance factions are hiding behind walls of silence. The media and communication platforms do not raise this most important sovereign issue for those familiar with politics and economics.
On the other hand, we notice a meaningless debate about the (development) that will be launched after the vote on the federal budget, which is scheduled to be for a period of three years, and it is an explosive budget, as it is described, in terms of the amount of money that will be spent, but it is also explosive in terms of The huge deficit that it entails, and it is incomprehensible why a large expenditure is allocated that results in a large deficit?!, unless the goal is to carry out a legitimate withdrawal of all the money in the state’s accounts.
This is the 20th time that the (executive order) No. (13303) related to Iraq, which was signed by President George W. Bush after the occupation in 2003, has been renewed. It grants supernatural powers that allow the head of the White House to bypass the controls of US legislation, in order to protect American interests and security. National, a case available in Washington since 1977.
Under the cover of this (executive order), the assassination of the leaders of Al-Nasr was carried out, which took place at Baghdad Airport in early 2020 under the direction of former US President Donald Trump, which is the same thing that allows any US president to carry out whatever he wants inside Iraqi territory.
Perhaps the missions of the US military bases currently in Iraq are linked to duties related to this matter, which is what makes Iraq on the level of Syria on the list of US classifications, given that Syria is also under the provisions of another executive order.
In the media, the (executive order) is called (the declaration of a state of emergency), which is a meaning that has political and economic significance that makes the country in which it is declared a country on the list of anxious and insecure countries, which means a country that is not attractive to investments or trade exchanges, which is what created a bad reputation. For Iraq in front of global companies and capital.
Therefore, American companies avoid working in Iraq, including avoiding working in the most profitable sectors, such as the energy and oil sectors, and this becomes more evident when we see that the American Exxon Mobil Company sells its contracts, more than once, to Chinese and Russian companies.
There are no US investments in Iraq or even commercial exchange except within the limits of (stock goods), and they appear in the form of used machinery and equipment, including cars that are out of service due to accidents, with the exception of the recent opening of a single branch of the (KFC) restaurant chain in one of the richest neighborhoods of the capital.
Baghdad, with the fact that this restaurant is one of the worst types of restaurants in the world, and it is the cheapest, and it is considered one of the popular restaurants that spread exclusively in the black and immigrant neighborhoods.
The US ambassador to Baghdad herself sought to open a Kentucky branch in Al-Jadriya, which is an attempt by her to achieve a commercial achievement on the ground that may be recorded as a success for her during her diplomatic work.
Perhaps the US ambassador does not understand, or is ignorant of, the effects of what the administration is doing in Washington when it renews every year the state of emergency, which leads to Iraq remaining in the category of dangerous countries, and which makes the smallest US banks avoid granting investment guarantees for investment and work opportunities in Iraq.
In such ambiguous circumstances, the Sudanese government believes that it can lure the World Bank to finance the development path project that it called for recently, and these perceptions are very naive, because the World Bank will not enter a single dollar into countries included in the US emergency list.
https://almasalah.com/archives/54719
Today's Newspapers Are Following The Budget And The Government's Measures To Deal With Water Scarcity And The Electricity Crisis
Sunday 04, June 2023 Journalism Number of readings: 272 Baghdad / NINA / - The newspapers issued today, Sunday, followed the budget and the government's measures to confront water scarcity and the electricity crisis.
On the budget, Al-Sabah newspaper said: “Between an optimist and a pessimist, the statements of politicians and members of parliament regarding the budget file came amid expectations of a very close breakthrough for the file by proposing solutions described as “moderation” to resolve the existing differences between the region and the federal government, especially regarding Article (14) of the related budget.The newspaper quoted a member of the Parliamentary Finance Committee, Mueen Al-Kazemi ,
as saying: “The coordination framework negotiator reached an agreement with the Democratic Party on the constitutional mechanism for exporting oil from the region.”
He continued by saying, "Dialogues are currently ongoing between the two parties regarding Article 14 of the budget, which consists of 12 paragraphs, 6 of which are agreed upon within the government text, and 6 other paragraphs are being discussed because the region considers them interference in its affairs.”
He pointed out that "negotiations are underway regarding the management of border crossings between the federal government and the region, and preventing the extraction of oil from the Nineveh and Kirkuk fields by Kurdistan."
The member of Parliamentary Finance pointed out that matters and disagreements will reach "middle solutions" during the next week, warning that the Finance Committee will make amendments to the budget, complete the transfers schedule, and refer it to Parliament for a vote on it.
Meanwhile, a member of the Parliamentary Finance Committee, Jamal Cougar, said, “The government will face a major deficit problem during the next year, because oil prices may trend downward, on the one hand, and on the other hand, the government has 23 trillion dinars rounded up from last year, and the surplus will be withdrawn during the current year.”
He added, "It is expected that next year's budget will be for salaries only in the presence of the same deficit," noting that "the operational budget alone has reached 140 trillion dinars, in contrast, the state's resources are 134 trillion dinars, which is not even sufficient for the operational budget," expressing his hope that "Oil prices remain high to save the budget and the country.
Al-Atbi said, "The delay in resolving the 2023 budget does not serve any political party in light of the various economic and security challenges in the Iraqi scene in general, which necessitate options that push the budget forward without any disagreements."
He added, "The coordination framework, in its expanded meeting a few days ago, presented a comprehensive vision of solutions to proceed with the 2023 budget for the Kurdish brothers, including the Democratic Party," expecting that "they will have a response in a meeting during the coming hours.”
He pointed out that "the discussions of the last days were positive in some of their items, and (the framework) supports the principle of political consensus to proceed with the budget," stressing that "the transfer of the budget at the end of this week from the Finance Committee to the House of Representatives for voting is very likely.”
For his part, the leader of the Fatah Alliance parliamentary bloc, Muhammad Karim, said: “The forces of the state administration have given a final opportunity for the talks to reach a solution regarding the Kurdistan region, as the negotiations should not exceed the next. two days."
He pointed out that "the majority of the state administration forces and other political forces took the decision to proceed with voting on the draft federal budget law, whether negotiations reached a solution or not, due to street pressure."
Al-Zawraa newspaper, which is published by the Journalists Syndicate, followed the government's measures to confront water scarcity and said that the Ministry of Water Resources revealed about its plans to face water scarcity this summer, while indicating that it is continuing to communicate with the upstream countries for the purpose of ensuring fair expenditures for Iraq, they confirmed that “water storage in Iraqi dams and lakes is down by 40% from the minimum storage achieved in previous years.
The newspaper quoted the official spokesman for the ministry, Khaled Shamal, as saying that there are three things that fall within the ministry's plan to confront a water scarcity in the summer, the first of which is managing water storage in the best way to secure the necessary needs for the summer season, i. Next.
He added, "The second matter is to reduce the abuses of water projects and quotas," pointing out that "the ministry has launched a campaign with the support of the Ministry of Agriculture and Electricity and all security agencies to fill in the exceeded fish lakes." .”
He continued, "The third issue is to communicate with the source countries for the purpose of ensuring fair expenditures for Iraq during the coming period, which would overcome the scarcity crisis in the country."
He revealed that «the ministry has plans that it aspires to implement, especially when approving the budget for land reclamation, lining canals, dredging rivers, transporting water through pipelines, dams, water harvesting and other projects concerned with rationalizing water uses and developing the water sector».
Al-Zaman newspaper followed the electricity crisis and said that the Ministry of Electricity will officially launch, next week, the electrical connection with the Gulf countries.
A source said
The ministry's spokesman, Ahmed Musa, said in a statement yesterday that "the connection with Jordan will be entered into service at the beginning of July as a first stage, with a capacity of 50 megawatts, reaching the district of Rutba in Anbar Governorate to feed the national network), indicating that (the connection required the construction of an existing Rutba line, part of which passes through Iraq and the other part through Jordan, in addition to the weather and soil conditions And some things led to a delay in its activation .”
Moussa explained that “the connection with Turkey is ready, with the exception of determining the price of the service, to enter into force as a first stage. As for the connection with the Gulf, it will be ready during the coming period.” Referring to (the signing of five contracts on the Gulf interconnection, which takes about a year to activate),
He added that (Iraq agreed with Saudi Arabia, during the last visit, to expand the Arar and Yusufiyah stations, according to a contract between the two sides), stressing that (the first stage will be 1,000 megawatts, Via anchor point delimiters and line paths (soon to be completed).
The ministry operated the transformative sports city station in Basra Governorate.
Yesterday's statement said, "The staff has dealt with the network problems and the shortage in energy, in response to the people of the province, in addition to operating the substation, which will contribute to resolving the electricity crisis in the Qibla areas, residential complexes , and the neighborhoods of the center of Basra.” And improve network power and unload loads). To receive