Iraq's Internal Debt Between Security Crises, Oil And The Pandemic, 20 JAN

 Iraq's Internal Debt Between Security Crises, Oil And The Pandemic

Time: 2025/01/18 10:46:25 Read: 1,495 times   {Economic: Al Furat News} The financial advisor to the Prime Minister, Mazhar Muhammad Salih, explained today, Saturday, that the roots of the increase in internal debt in Iraq go back to two stages over a decade. 

The first stage was linked to the security/financial crisis that occurred during the war on ISIS terrorism, and the accompanying drop in oil prices to levels in which a barrel of oil lost about 60% of the value of its estimated revenues.

Saleh added in his statement to {Euphrates News} that “the impact of this decline was reflected in the revenues of the general budget, in which oil revenues constitute nearly 90% of the total revenues, and that the internal debt is from treasury transfers whose repayment period is one year with an average interest rate ranging between 4 to 5%, in addition to a small portion of other bonds with different repayment periods, all of which are issued by the Ministry of Finance, and followed exclusively by government banks in most cases.”

He pointed out that "the scene was repeated in the second phase, as the domestic debt increased again between 2020 and 2021 due to the financial crisis resulting from the decline in oil prices by almost the same percentage, which coincided with the Corona pandemic (Covid-19) crisis and the closure of the global economy, which was called at the time (the financial/health crisis)."  LINK