Monday, January 20, 2025

l-Nusairi: Banks Are The Lever Of Sustainable Development, 20 JAN

l-Nusairi: Banks Are The Lever Of Sustainable Development

Banks  Economy News – Baghdad   Economic and banking advisor Samir Al-Nusairi confirmed, on Sunday, the completion of the Central Bank’s procedures for implementing the goals and initiatives of its third strategy 2024-2026, which is concerned with developing and restructuring the banking sector in accordance with what the consulting and auditing companies that are currently cooperating with the Central Bank and with the government in this field have reached, and that it should not be limited to support, but rather go beyond that to include the banking sector in making economic, financial, banking and investment decisions.

Al-Nusairi spoke about the challenges of the Iraqi economy and the opportunities for reform of the banking sector in the government’s program and the prospects of the Central Bank’s future vision for the role of the banking sector in sustainable development.

 In light of the efforts currently being made to activate and revolutionize the productive economic sectors other than oil to diversify sources of national income and achieve financial sustainability, and the role of the Central Bank in regulating foreign trade financing and completing infrastructure projects to achieve comprehensive digital transformation and expand the use of electronic payment tools in achieving financial inclusion.

He explained that the opportunities for reforming and developing the banking sector in 2025 are as follows:

1- Developing the Iraqi banking system and its compliance with international banking and accounting standards.

2- Enhancing citizens’ confidence in the banking sector locally and internationally recognizing its transparency, progress, and strict commitment to international standards and obtaining the confidence of solid correspondent banks to deal with it.

3- Converting banks to their primary function, which is financing and bank lending for development.

4- Banks that do not provide loans and banking facilities that help in development as a lever for sustainable development lose their meaning as banks, which requires a specific position towards them from the Central Bank in 2025.

5- Seeking to move from a cash economy to a digital economy and withdrawing money outside the banking cycle and introducing it into the banking system.

He pointed out that all the above goals, although the period specified for their implementation according to the timetable of the government program and the strategy of the Central Bank ranges between (1-4 years), what was achieved in 2023 and 2024 constitutes about 60% as announced, which led to the evaluation and classification of banks based on their achievement of the planned goals. 

There are banks that are moving towards the required development and banks that still need an additional period of time to achieve the goals, and there are troubled banks that are now making exceptional efforts from the Central Bank and the administrations of these banks to rehabilitate them.

He added that what concerns us here is the real functional role of banks in providing loans and banking facilities and moving from a banking role to a developmental role. There are two important observations that must be taken into consideration regarding the issue of providing loans and banking facilities to stimulate the economy and development. 

The first: The nature of banks’ activities depends on the nature of the activities of the economic sectors, and as long as economic activity is focused on trade (imports), banks’ activity remains focused on external transfers and what is related to that, so unless other sectors move (industry, agriculture, tourism, etc.).

It is worth noting that without controlling imports, these sectors will not develop. Second: It is necessary to provide the legal environment and extend the authority of the law in order to control the speculation market in the US dollar on the black market and to eliminate the phenomenon of illegal trade through unofficial outlets.   https://economy-news.net/content.php?id=52082

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