KTFA
FRANK26: "THE MONETARY REFORM'S SUCCESS"..........F26
The Central Bank of Iraq 77 years of challenges and reforms
11/24/2024
On 11-16-2024, the Central Bank of Iraq will have been established and carrying out its duties for 77 years. During this time, it has
gone through stages of economic and financial challenges that faced the applications of monetary policy.
During those years, it was directly confronted with overcoming those challenges, political influences and changes in the economic systems that were prevalent at that time. However, the Central Bank proved to be a solid sovereign economic and financial institution that was established in 1947 of the last century. It is responsible for drawing up paths and policies for implementing monetary policy, supervising and monitoring the banking sector and is considered the financial advisor to the government. Its role was essential in managing the economic process in Iraq and 24 governors who were distinguished by their expertise and technical and administrative specifications assumed the leadership of its administration.
After the change in 2003 and according to its new law 56 of 2004 and through its management of monetary policy and achieving its objectives, Iraq has gone through an important stage of its economic system during the past 21 years, where the change included the beginning of new applications for economic construction that depend on building the premises of transition from the philosophy and strategies of the central economic system in managing the economy to the philosophy, strategies and mechanisms of the market economy. Therefore, the Central Bank of Iraq has taken great developmental steps towards transitioning from banking activity to real and developmental activity, especially during the last eight years. Since the issuance of the laws regulating banking work in 2004, great achievements have been made in the field of reducing the rampant inflation that Iraq was suffering from and bringing it to good and advanced rates at the level of neighboring and regional countries.
The financial data and indicators also indicate that the Central Bank of Iraq has been able to maintain the exchange rate of the Iraqi dinar against the US dollar for several years in a balanced manner despite the fluctuations and variations up and down due to the difficult economic conditions and financial and economic crises caused by the decline in oil prices, the war on terrorism and the speculations that occur in the markets. It also maintained the general level of prices, as it is noted that the daily intervention of the Central Bank of Iraq in managing monetary policy tools in light of monetary policy data and issuing instructions, controls, memoranda, regulatory and advisory regulations that are consistent with international standards and the requirements of compliance systems and standards and combating money laundering and terrorist financing and issuing a law regulating this under No. 39 of 2015 and clearing the observations identified by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) which moved Iraq from the gray area to regular follow-up and tried to control the violations that occur through review and evaluation and classifying banks for comprehensive evaluation purposes according to the (CAMELS) system and using the electronic platform for the purposes of the foreign currency sales window and foreign transfers and stimulating and encouraging banks to find new banking relationships with foreign correspondent banks with the aim of controlling the movement of foreign currency and limiting its disposal in contrast to the economic goals specified for monetary policy applications and achieving the arrival of 95% of foreign transfers with high transparency in 2024 to the final beneficiary.
Dealing in selling foreign currency is considered one of the largest open market operations in controlling local liquidity levels and putting the cash surplus on its proper path. It is a good economic indicator that the exchange rate will be stable despite the difficult economic conditions that Iraq went through after 2014, 2020 and 2022. The Central Bank of Iraq was also able to maintain a good foreign exchange reserve that currently exceeds $100 billion, in addition to its gold reserve of about 153 tons. Despite the recessionary conditions and global economic variables, the reserves nevertheless formed a safe cover for the Iraqi dinar by 140% in circulation and to cover foreign trade. It also contributed clearly to covering the deficit in the general budgets according to what is planned by re-discounting treasury bonds issued by the Ministry of Finance and issuing international treasury bonds, in addition to the World Bank’s praise for the economic and financial reform programs adopted by the Central Bank according to its first, second and third strategies and its expectations of good growth rates during the coming year 2025 at around 5.3% for the Iraqi economy, recording progress at the level of Arab and regional countries.
And the formation of a joint committee between it and the Ministry of Finance to coordinate between the financial and monetary policies, and many coordination procedures have been achieved as a result. The calculated and bold economic and financial procedures taken by the Central Bank and its successful experience in providing continuous support to the Iraqi economy, in addition to its initiative to activate the economic cycle and stimulate the economy and launch and follow up on the implementation of its multiple initiatives to finance small, medium and housing projects and launch the national strategy for bank lending in Iraq and achieve two economic and social goals at the same time, as well as taking other important measures by establishing the Iraqi Deposit Insurance Company, which began its tasks for the purpose of restoring confidence in the banking sector and increasing the savings rate of the monetary mass in banks at the expense of the hoarding rate. And preparing to launch the financial inclusion strategy soon, which reached a percentage of about 48%.
All of this was accompanied by structural, organizational and developmental developments in all the bank’s specialized and qualitative departments, focusing on comprehensive quality management, institutional development, adopting international standards, adhering to the rules and regulations of compliance, risk management, combating money laundering and terrorist financing, banking awareness, technical developments in payment systems, electronic payment, information technology, and working rapidly in cooperation with the government to move from a cash economy to a digital economy, which contributed to moving the policies and procedures of the Central Bank to an advanced stage on the path to achieving economic, financial and banking stability, especially the agreement with international consulting and auditing companies for the purpose of structuring and developing the government and private banking sector.
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