TNT:

Tishwash:  Sudanese congratulates Iranian president-elect

 Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani stressed, today, Saturday, the importance of continuing coordination between Iraq and Iran at the highest levels and in all fields.

The Prime Minister's Media Office stated in a statement that "Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani congratulated Masoud Pezeshkian on his election as President of the Islamic Republic of Iran."

In a telegram sent to Pezeshkian, according to the statement, the Prime Minister expressed his "wishes for his success in his duties," stressing "the depth of relations between the two friendly neighboring countries, and the importance of continuing coordination at the highest levels, in all fields, and in a way that serves common interests."   link

Tishwash:  US messages to Iraqi leaders: Dollar cash flow may stop

Prominent Kurdish politician, Masoud Barzani, sent messages to Iraqi political leaders, stating that the entry of some factions into the Israeli-Iranian conflict may prevent the flow of cash dollars into Iraq. 

Politician Mishaan Al-Jubouri said that Barzani informed the leaders of the Coordination Framework that the American siege will be imposed on Iraq if Washington's interests are attacked. 

He added that Barani also informed the leaders of the Coordination Framework that America can stop the flow of dollars to Iraq and cause harm to the country, but Iraq is unable to cause any harm to America   link

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Tishwash:  Prime Minister's Advisor: Iraq in the process of paying off long-term development loans to the World Bank

The financial advisor to the Prime Minister, Mazhar Muhammad Salih, confirmed today, Saturday, that zeroing out the debts to the International Monetary Fund reflects Iraq's high and solid creditworthiness, while indicating that Iraq is in the process of paying off long-term development loans to the World Bank.

 Saleh told the Iraqi News Agency (INA): "Iraq has entered into about 5 programs with the International Monetary Fund since 2004 until the end of 2018, including 3 credit readiness programs, and all of them were characterized by providing loans whose function was to support the state of stability and economic reform in Iraq in two directions. The first: loan programs, as Iraq received loans from the International Monetary Fund to help it overcome economic crises, as these loans included supporting the general budget and financing economic stability programs, especially during the war on ISIS terrorism."

He added: "As for the other direction: in the field of economic reforms, as the International Monetary Fund usually stipulates that countries that receive loans implement certain economic reforms. In the case of Iraq, these reforms included improving the management of public finances and the banking sector, enhancing transparency, combating corruption, and reforming the energy sector."

He pointed out that "these loans did not exceed $5 billion per loan, and the actual withdrawal from them will not exceed $3 billion or more in each case, and according to a repayment program that takes place every 6 months with grace periods of two years before repayment with a moderate annual interest that usually does not exceed 4.5%, and the terms of these loans do not exceed five years."

He pointed out that "Iraq has repaid the loans that were withdrawn during the past twenty years according to regular payment mechanisms and are close to zeroing out unless they are all zeroed out today, which reflects the high and solid creditworthiness of the Republic of Iraq in repayment before the international financial community in particular and towards multilateral international financial organizations in general."

He continued: "But certainly there are long-term development loans that belong to the World Bank that are still in place, which is another development financial organization, and are worth a few billion and are in the process of repayment, and some of them are still in the process of committing to withdrawing them to spend them on completing development projects contracted with the World Bank, and they are also long-term soft loans."

He stressed that "cooperation relations continue between Iraq and the International Monetary Fund in various fields, including providing technical advice and supporting economic policies," noting that "the relationship between Iraq, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank is important for achieving economic stability and sustainable development in the country."

He pointed out that "Iraq has been a founding member of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank since 1945."  link

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Tishwash:  The Iraqi Private Sector and Improving the Investment Environment in the National Development Plan 2024-2028

During the past three months, the Ministry of Planning and the specialized work teams have made efforts to prepare and prepare the National Development Plan 2024-2028, the draft ofD which addressed in detail the main challenges facing the Iraqi private sector and the main objectives aimed at achieving its effective contribution to improving the investment environment.

While I agree with what is stated in the plan, we emphasize the need to add the basic pillars stated in the private sector development strategy.

For the years 2014-2030, and in particular its three time periods, its four pillars, its four pillars, what has been achieved since its launch in 2014, and what has not been achieved.

 It is also necessary to state what has been achieved from Iraq’s Vision 2030, which clearly outlined the path to achieving a “strong and developing private sector.”

In addition to determining what has been achieved during the implementation of previous national development plans and the economic, financial and banking reform strategy included in the government program of the current government and what is the real role through which the private sector should contribute with government participation and support in managing the overall economy. This requires providing a legislative environment and a stable business environment and focusing on the axes that aim to build sound preliminaries for the transition to a complete economic reform. This is what we all agree on, but this requires the government and the private sector in all its banking, industrial, agricultural, energy, health, construction, tourism and service sectors to participate and cooperate in implementing the transitional, medium and long-term economic reform strategy.

This means involving the private sector in a greater role in economic decision-making and leading the market institutionally and legislatively through the following: 

1- Contributing with the government to improving the business environment in Iraq and providing an encouraging investment climate to attract national and foreign capital in accordance with the government’s program and encouraging and stimulating the achievement of partnerships between the public and private sectors in financing and developing development projects that have achieved implementation rates. 

Good and its allocations are included in the general budgets of 2024 and 2025

 2- Contributing with the government to creating a new legislative environment based on Article (25) of the Permanent Constitution, the strategies and laws related to economic reform, the private sector development strategy, its pillars and specific contents, in a way that ensures its activation and leadership of the market in the future.

3- Maintaining and activating the partnership, dialogue and cooperation between the private sector and the government by taking rapid measures to activate the Private Sector
Development Council and start its work under the chairmanship of the Prime Minister, enacting a special law for it and forming a joint advisory council from the government and private sectors linked to the council that includes experts from the various economic sectors nominated by the council members and provides its advice and works according to a special system approved by the council.

 4- Contributing with the government in developing policies, mechanisms and strategies and participating in following up on their implementation to resolve the transition to time-programmed stages to a market economy. 

5- Working with the government to provide additional sources of funding for the state’s general budget by adopting the development and diversification of resources towards raising
the percentage of resources other than oil in the gross domestic product, by activating the real economy and diversifying sources of national income.

 6- Work to encourage the establishment and development of small, medium and micro enterprises in order to achieve comprehensive and sustainable development, including the formation of specialized institutions for this purpose and issuing a special law to develop and advance these projects and determine their economic feasibility and benefit from the Riyada initiative launched by the Prime Minister and the National Lending Strategy launched by the Central Bank on 5/25/2024. 

7- Cooperation in financing and ensuring the implementation of central plans to provide infrastructure to encourage and develop the private sector in industry, trade, agriculture, tourism, health, energy, construction, strengthening and services. 

8- Activating the role of specialized banks and private banks to provide soft loans to the national private sector, as well as finding solutions to the problems of taxes and accumulated interest incurred by owners of projects that have stopped production, and setting a short- and medium-term financial policy. 

 9- Coordination and cooperation with the relevant ministries and financial and statistical institutions, especially the Ministries of Planning and Finance, in building a financial and statistical information base and ensuring its transparency.  link

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