Mawazine News – Baghdad
Central Bank Governor Ali Al-Alaq revealed today, Wednesday, an upcoming meeting in New York to discuss the file of banks on punishment, while noting that there is no tendency to reconsider dollar exchange rates.
Al-Alaq said, according to the official agency, that “there are external and local challenges, but in general the financial situation in Iraq is still going within what is planned in the general budget of the state,” noting that “there is high coordination between the Central Bank and the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Finance in standing on the financial side of its continuation, stability and sustainability.” He added, “We are currently and almost daily working closely with the Ministry of Finance to implement the financial plan drawn up in the general budget, in order to ensure the coverage of its objectives, programs and existing needs,” noting that “for the first time, by virtue of the new budget law and financial management, the allocations of governorates and ministries are rotated, so there is wide coverage of the needs of the financial aspect and for the first time the volume of the existing balances of ministries and governorates is large that enables them to play their role.”
He stated that “the Central Bank is undergoing a major transformation in the reorganization of foreign trade to secure several objectives at the same time, and one of these objectives is the transparency of the operations in the external transfer that starts from the transfer process and the transfer to the last beneficiary and to the source through all data, documents and information that enhance and match the reality,” explaining that “this process is conducted for the first time in the history of Iraq and the international audit institutions participate and audit the information before it reaches the implementation stage, as if the process meets all the local conditions and standards of the Anti-Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing Law or international standards, then these transfers go on, but if In it, any deficiency, defect or suspicion was directly rejected and returned.”
He stated that “the previous audit process was taking place, but with a subsequent process, and the audits may remain for years, but now the process does not go unless it is sound in all its aspects, parties, documents, reinforcements and the facts on which it is based,” explaining that “any transformation process needs time and understanding between all parties and also acceptance.” He stressed that “the level of acceptance of this new system was involved in large and medium-sized importing companies, thus securing all their imports with high flow, and this is very necessary,” pointing out that “the problem of small traders, some of whom have entered this process and others are still reluctant to enter or looking for other means to cover their foreign trade, either to escape tax or customs accounting or the procedures required by the process of opening accounts.” He pointed out that “what we are focusing on in the current and next stage is to make everyone engaged in sound fundamental channels,” pointing out that “the presence of these small traders outside the system is putting pressure on the dollar cash market and causing its rise.” He pointed out that “there are solutions we are working on with international and financial institutions in order to organize the small trade process,” explaining that “a meeting was held yesterday in this regard to complement previous meetings, and we need some time to organize this remaining process of foreign trade.”
Regarding other currencies, Al-Alaq stressed that “the Central Bank has opened channels for the Chinese, Turkish, Indian and Emirati currencies, which are currencies that represent a great weight in foreign trade, where there was a pause for a period due to a new regulation aimed at providing adequate control over these operations, because we discovered in the previous formula that there is some circumvention in the use of these channels, whether for unrealistic sources or the return of amounts from countries to another,” explaining that “a new audit has been put in place by an international company and we have finished organizing this process and is now in the process again.”
He pointed out that “all commercial foreign transfers are subject to review by the competent international company and be a mediator between Iraqi banks and the correspondent bank, in order to reassure the correspondent bank that these operations are sound and audited,” pointing out that “some banks have correspondent banks and others do not have internationally approved correspondent banks, and now they seek to do so, but it is long late and the Central Bank has continuously urged the opening of relations with correspondent banks, because the Iraqi bank without external correspondents is considered as a local bank and cannot open up to the world.” He stressed that “our banks, after getting to know the banks and realized the importance of these relations, began to move on those banks, and the Central Bank, for its part, supports this trend and helps him.” Al-Alaq stressed that “in light of the new regulation of the external transformation process, our view at the level should look at the real price at which the Central Bank sells more than 250 million dollars daily at the official price, meaning that the bank covers foreign trade, and this explains why there is no inflation or a rise in prices and other legitimate requests for individuals with all their needs.
The parallel market becomes a market for those who do not want to move towards fundamentalist methods of conversion and be illegal trade or trade that frugets from fundamentalist procedures or other illegal operations such as drug trade, human trafficking or corruption funds and others,” explaining that “the Prime Minister stressed We are not providing the official dollar for illegal operations.” “Why would any party go to buy the dollar at a higher price when the official price has it? Unless it has an illegal purpose or a non-framinential order,” he said, noting that “the view that the dollar price has risen or decreased is not a correct indicator, as it must be seen what and how much the central bank’s sales reach the official price to liquidate various needs.” He pointed out that “the main goal of the Central Bank is to maintain the general level of prices and reduce inflation. It is assumed that this is the measure of the success of monetary policy, which succeeded in controlling this aspect and the level of inflation compared to other countries and even in previous years is much lower, and within the target.
This means that the foreign trade on which Iraq depends mainly by meeting the needs of citizens is covered at the official price.” Al-Alaq continued that “there is great praise in all meetings with international organizations, including the International Monetary Fund, the Federal Bank and the American Treasury, with the transformations, management and organization of the external transfer process in the Central Bank of Iraq at the present time,” explaining that “the Assistant Undersecretary of the US Treasury stated in his meeting with the Prime Minister the need to celebrate the achievements achieved in the external transfer process and the stages in which the Central Bank of Iraq moved from it, which the electronic platform went through stages and difficulties and then settled to a situation where the rejection rate of operations at times reached 80 percent and now does not exceed 5%.”
He stressed that “the format of the platform burdens the central bank and external parties, including the Federal Bank, which we should not be busy as central banks by entering the details of the transfers, so what we have done is the gradual transformation from the electronic platform to find a direct relationship between the Iraqi bank and the correspondent without going through the central or federal bank,” pointing out that “we have reached an achievement rate of up to 85% in the process of foreign transformations without going through the US federal, and this is something that international organizations say is something that must be celebrated.”
He pointed out that “our plan until the end of the year will reach 100%, with foreign transfers between Iraqi banks and correspondent banks, without passing through the US Federalist, and then the role of the Central Bank will be normal, such as supervision, supervision, follow-up and consideration of the conduct of operations without entering into the detailed daily executive procedures.” Al-Alaq indicated that “there are meetings that will take place with the Federal Bank and the US Treasury Department to review all aspects related to the processes of external transformation and bank supervision. There will be held at the end of August in New York to discuss a number of files, including sanctions on some banks,” pointing out that “the words, interpretations and additions that appeared in what happened at the previous meeting in Washington. In fact, were not the quarterly meeting and we did not meet with the Federal Bank, but we were to attend other meetings.
There was a visit on this occasion to the Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury and a natural meeting that dealt with general matters during which he confirmed the success of the Central Bank in leading the steps it is taking, whether for remittances. Foreign or cash sale of the dollar, which was also developed to ensure that the traveler obtains the dollar, indicating that the previous operations in granting the dollar to travelers were faced by many problems and the speculators tried to enter these operations by different means, which reflected negatively on the dollar as well as the use of the passports of others.
He pointed out that “the new mechanism provides the elimination of these methods, as the dollar is not granted to the traveler until after the departure seal,” explaining that “the operation began days ago, but in general it is carried out in high flow with some observations and there are teams present in the airports to monitor the process and obstacles, and this will ensure 100% in achieving our goals, which is to reach the real traveler, where we started in Baghdad, then Basra, and then Najaf Al-Ashraf, and now the procedures are based on the basis of opening the ports at the airports of Erbil, Sulaimaniyah and Kirkuk.”
Al-Alaq explained that “the lifting of restrictions on some banks is of the attention of the Central Bank, which came close to solving the problems and developing appropriate solutions to ensure stability and growth of the banking sector,” noting that “several meetings were held on the file of lifting restrictions on some banks and through which we reached a plan that will provide stable results for the future.” He added that “the plan related to the reform of banks that are subject to restrictions and their removal includes two axes, the first is related to conducting an audit of previous operations that have been raised about the doubts through an independent external audit office, some of which have been completed, while we are waiting for the complete audit of some others so that we stand on the overall picture and the classification of the nature of these problems and how the procedures are about them will be done later.”
He pointed out that “the second axis of the plan is internationally praised by the Central Bank contracting with an international consulting company to work on developing a strategy for the banking sector in the future, determining the size of the existing problem, placing it in an independent framework, preventing its recurrence and reformulating the banking sector,” pointing out that this plan is based on inventorying the size of the banking sector existing in Iraq, the number of banks required to be in Iraq, the size and activity of these banks, what are the rules, policies and procedures they adopt to be stable and acceptable locally and internationally. It is that “this plan was initiated by the Central Bank through the consulting company and will take time to determine the scope of work and the goals that we want to reach. To her,” he said, noting that besides this plan, another plan is underway to reform the state banking sector.”
Al-Alaq pointed out that the Prime Minister is holding monthly meetings with the International Advisory Company concerned with the reform of the government banking sector,” noting that “the continuous follow-up from the Prime Minister gave momentum in the progress of the reform processes, whether at the government or private levels, and the self-determination of these banks will be on clear bases and not patchmental remedies or uncalculated reactions.” Al-Alaq pledged to reach a real stable banking sector consistent with what is required at the national economy level and that some banks do not remain marginal and do not represent a real addition to the Iraqi economy and to receive external acceptance through agreement to apply them international policies, procedures and standards.
Al-Alaq indicated that “the Central Bank has not specified a quota for the external transfer of banks and can progress with what it can attract from external transfer transactions, and the Central Bank does not interfere with the choices of customers and that carry out this process depend on their capabilities to attract their customers.” He pointed out that the Central Bank’s quest to strengthen and support the role of the Iraqi Trade Bank to assume a greater role in the foreign trade process,” he said, denying that there was talk about reconsidering the issue of the exchange rate. The Governor of the Central Bank revealed the existence of a government trend that has been fixed in the budget to increase the capital supporting this file through the Land Bank and the Housing Fund. “Al-Alaq said, “Although the task of financing the housing sector is the responsibility of banks or the task of the real estate bank and the housing fund, the initiatives of the Central Bank played an exceptional role in trying to fill the deficit in the issue of housing.”
He added, “The natural and required role called for by the Central Bank was to increase the capital of the Land Bank and the Housing Fund so that it can perform the task entrusted to it, especially since the capital falls short of the requirements and large and wide needs in financing this aspect.” He added that “the government was expected to increase the capital of the real estate bank and the housing fund to support the population sector, it seems that the matter was achieved and budgeted, but so far has not been implemented.” He pointed out that “when we visited the Real Estate Bank, we entered the details of the situation in order to stand on the real need for the required funding and found that the requests of the Real Estate Bank are divided into two parts of which are related to the purchase of housing units outside the complexes in all governorates.
These are the most old requests and we asked the Real Estate Bank to give a statistic with all these requests and we will try to cover them all in order to close this file.” He added, “The second aspect concerns residential complexes, where we were financing the real estate bank with amounts to distribute to the complexes in the provinces regardless of priorities because we do not want the financing of the central bank to be the alternative to the investor’s own obligations in financing the project.” He continued, “Therefore, within a move of the Central Bank, the Real Estate Bank was directed, and in order to encourage the investor to complete the project and deliver the units, directed it that the completion rate is the basis of the financing, where we start with complexes that have ready or semi-ready units with rates ranging from 80-90% to achieve two goals with the goal of pushing investors to complete these complexes, provide job opportunities and support the movement of the market and meet the needs of citizens as soon as possible.”
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