Adviser to the Prime Minister: Iraq is within the safe range countries in terms of paying foreign debts, 4 APRIL

 Adviser to the Prime Minister: Iraq is within the safe range countries in terms of paying foreign debts

Today, Thursday, the financial advisor to the Prime Minister, Mazhar Muhammad Salih, revealed the reasons for reducing annual allocations to pay off foreign debts, while noting that Iraq is among the countries in the safe range in terms of debt repayment.

Saleh said to the Iraqi News Agency (INA): “According to international standards in calculating the ability of the national economy to bear the burden of external debt, Iraq is among the group of countries in the safe range in terms of the global standard for the ratio of the external debt stock,” indicating that “the gross domestic product According to estimates, it does not exceed 20 percent, while the global measure of the debt-to-GDP ratio allows up to 60 percent.

He explained, “Given Iraq’s regularity in repaying its external debts due annually, of which only approximately 20 billion dollars remain, the annual allocations to pay external debts through the federal general budget allocations have begun to show a clear decline and decrease in the amount of external debts due, and this has been reflected.”

 This is in the 2024 budget tables regarding allocations for external debt payments, compared to the 2023 budget tables, with a difference of decrease that may exceed a billion dollars.

He added, "This matter is reflected in Iraq's high creditworthiness in repaying its debts to external creditors and its commitment to repayment since the Paris Club Agreement in 2004 until the present. These are annual financial allocation mechanisms whose installments and interest are paid on a regular basis through the annual general budget, and they are decreasing. This means that the external debt gap is heading towards shrinking and then almost disappearing.”

He noted that "the Paris Club Agreement in 2004 dropped more than 100 billion dollars of Iraq's pre-1990 debt after Iraq obtained a discount on its debts at that time, which was 80 percent and more, and only a little of the remnants of those debts remained after it was removed." The remainder of it has been scheduled and is paid annually according to a precise and regular accounting mechanism on the part of Public Finance and the Central Bank of Iraq, and the continuous decrease in its allocations is demonstrated by the amount of the decrease in the annual allocation of external receivables from the debts that must be paid and their waiver annually   link