Government Advisor: Iraq enters the advanced digital age in early 2024
Economy News-Baghdad
The financial adviser to Prime Minister Mazhar Mohammed Saleh confirmed on Tuesday that Iraq will enter the advanced digital era early next year 2024, with a large official announcement.
Saleh said, “The government curriculum of Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani focused on the principles of reform work in the public administration, which took two basic directions, namely the elimination of the phenomenon of corruption in general and systemic corruption in particular, which is the most serious corruption that contributes more than one detail within the executive branch, and the second trend is to maximize the state’s non-oil revenues and make its percentage in the estimates of the federal budget no less than 20% instead of its low percentages of about 10% or even less, to ensure the goals within the current reform years.”
He added that “the non-oil revenue devices, which are led today by customs and tax bodies, border crossings and others, are at the forefront of the trends of financial and administrative reform. At the level of international indicators, there are three elements that mostly frustrate the efforts of countries in confronting financial and administrative corruption. The first is summarized as follows: dealing with paper transactions with the public and direct human communication, the second: direct monetary dealing in the settlement of levies and others and the risks generated in behavior, and the third: the absence of digital systems in the conduct of transactions without human intervention.”
He continued: “Based on the above, and in order to achieve the goal of the government program in reforming and replacing digital systems in dealing with non-oil voluntary devices, an accurate digital program is being adopted rapidly adopted by the government today, and is based on assessment, examination and electronic collection without direct human intervention and according to advanced digital systems carried out with solid national experiences and in cooperation with major international digital companies, in addition to the experiences of the United Nations Development and Trade Organization, especially in the digital development sectors at border ports, customs and taxes. Thus, Iraq will in early in 2024, has entered the advanced digital era rapidly and there will be a large official announcement in this regard.”
He pointed out that “the replacement of payment systems and the spread of digital transactions, starting from the digital government levies and ending in large and small payments within economic activity, which will culminate in the new digital era for Iraq,” noting that “the acceleration in the use of electronic payments is one of the guarantees of the banking business and the safety and sobriety of its operations, due to the decrease in the so-called (liquidity risk) of the banking system because of its knowledge of daily flows and balances continuously without interruption, which makes banks deal with (dual) flexible cash demand that is not shrinked by liquidity or anticipation of its loss, that is, without the availability of sufficient information due to the high state of uncertainty, which is the prevailing attribute when the absence of digital payment systems, which is disrupted at the same time And the need for accelerated funding to support economic activity.”
He stressed that “such phenomena will undoubtedly all disappear in the digital banking system, and the risk of cash liquidity will decrease due to the high levels of certainty in the flow of funds provided by digital systems in transactions between the public on the one hand, the public and banks on the other, within the framework of the operation of a highly governable and financial transparency digital payments system and meets the needs of the growth of the economic business sector without doubts and hesitation imposed by liquidity risks due to lack of information.”
He pointed out that “there is a correlation between financial inclusion, which means the delivery of banking services to the weakest segments of economic society and the development of digital payments. The replacement of digital payments includes the expansion and upgrading of the number of bank accounts. The opening of a bank account represents the essence of digital financial inclusion. With the development of the digital payments market in Iraq, it is noted that the phenomenon of the opening of bank accounts has increased in a remarkable way recently and tens of thousands of bank accounts that have begun to open daily and continuously, according to what the Association of Private Banks said a few days ago, which means that the Iraqi banking system is in an accelerated movement of change and development commensurate with the new digital age of Iraq, which His principles laid the current government program.”