"EDDIE ASKS... WHY." BY FRANK26, 29 NOV

 KTFA

FRANK26: "EDDIE ASKS... WHY.".........F26

Assigning two international companies to study the Iraqi banking market

11/24/2024

Baghdad

The financial advisor to the Prime Minister, Mazhar Mohammed Salih, announced today, Sunday, that the government is in the process of owning a banking system based on the foundations of the competitive market, while he pointed out that two international companies have been assigned to study the Iraqi banking market.

Saleh told the official agency: "The government's strategy for banking reform began with the government banking sector under the supervision of the Prime Minister and is based on isolating government financial operations from the activity of developing the banking market, because the government banking sector in its current traditional form dominates 88% of the country's banking activity, which made government banking operations mixed with market activity."

He added, "We are waiting for the birth of a banking system owned by the government, but based on the foundations of a competitive market in providing banking services and achieving actual financial inclusion and digital financial inclusion, and in line with the digital payments policy that our country has been strongly pursuing for more than a year," noting that "the private banking sector is also going through an evaluation phase, and there are opportunities for voluntary mergers between more than one bank that has an international strategic banking partner."

He explained that "the objectives of banking reform in Iraq will end with a high integration that achieves competitiveness, homogeneity, compliance and governance within the Iraqi banking market, and achieves the integration of the national banking market with the global market," noting that "the entire issue is being closely followed by Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani after assigning two international companies to study the Iraqi banking market and in accordance with a new vision that is consistent with the national economy's need for credit and investment and mobilizing the public's accumulated resources to ensure a more stable and efficient national income cycle."

As for the private sector, Saleh explained that “the launch of the philosophy of development partnership between the state and the private sector was embodied for the first time in the government granting sovereign guarantees to the private industrial sector to collect global loans to finance production lines for the most important industrial projects from the European Union countries and Japan, which lead the future of development, and at five levels of industries, starting with guaranteeing financing for infrastructure industries related to the development path, pharmaceuticals, petrochemicals and refining, and ending with important digital industries, without neglecting the interest in supporting the agricultural sector and farmers in protecting the country’s food security from the production of important strategic food crops.”

He stressed that "the government has not neglected to implement the national strategy for the private sector, which hopes that the private sector's contribution to the country's GDP will increase from 37% currently to more than 54% in the coming years, by providing opportunities to establish the private sector through supporting government development financing for it, whether through the Iraq Development Fund or the Riyada Bank (mixed sector) established by the Central Bank of Iraq to promote the role of the private sector in development and raise growth rates in its investments and contributions to the country's GDP, in accordance with the private sector development strategy that the government has been adopting for years."

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