The Central Bank reiterates its emphasis on facilitating and simplifying banking procedures
2/29/2024
The Central Bank of Iraq reiterated its mandate to facilitate and simplify banking procedures by taking the necessary measures to ensure this by banks, and facilitating “know your customer” procedures in accordance with the laws and instructions issued in this regard.
The Central Bank pointed out that this comes for the requirements of the public interest, and in order to enhance the performance of banks using various approved means for the purpose of attracting the public to conduct financial operations through the banking channels approved by it, and the impact of this on the growth of the Iraqi banking sector.
Automation of government departments is an urgent national requirement
3/3/2024
Baghdad: Huda Al-Azzawi
Since Iraq entered the new era after the fall of the dictatorship in 2003, successive governments announced their intention to move from the paper-based system, with its waste of time, suspicions of corruption, nepotism, and plundering of public money, to an automation system through the electronic governance portal in all state departments and institutions, and while these announcements remained ink on Paper, the Iraqis hope that during the current Sudanese government, this system will be implemented in departments and bodies such as border crossings, customs, and taxation, which will save the state treasury huge sums of money estimated by “semi-official” bodies at 12 billion dollars annually, while official authorities estimate it at 7 billion dollars annually.
The Prime Minister’s Advisor for Economic and Financial Affairs, Dr. Mazhar Muhammad Saleh, said in an interview with “Al-Sabah”: “The process of automating border crossings and customs points will completely cover the country’s annual imports with these digital systems and procedures by controlling the country’s air and land (border and customs) ports.” And the sea, to which imports of various goods and merchandise flow, whose annual value touches approximately 60 billion dollars on average, and which are dominated by private or private sector imports at a rate of more than 65 percent, will undoubtedly provide our country with several benefits.”
He explained, “These benefits are represented in the following: 1- Reducing evasion of customs duties and taxes, due to the availability of the ability and accuracy to know the details of imported materials and their conformity with the certificate of origin and purchase invoices, which maximizes public revenues, specifically customs revenues or so-called indirect taxes, 2 - The availability of detailed information about the import content through the accuracy of the digital system in detection, which provides the required basic elements of qualitative and commodity control and avoiding the entry of prohibited goods into our country, 3- Reducing human interference in the monitoring, evaluation and demarcation processes and the resulting violations that sometimes contradict the legal system. between the parties to the relationship.
Saleh added, “In addition to the previous benefits, the digital system provides a detailed statistical information base about our country’s foreign trade in terms of quantity and quality with greater accuracy, as well as providing speed in completing customs transactions, which will reduce the costs of commercial transactions, which will reflect positively on the value of goods and merchandise in our country’s markets.” "
For his part, political affairs analyst, Omar Al-Nasser, said in an interview with “Al-Sabah”: “The great powers always tend to keep pace with technological progress in order to push their economy forward and protect their security and national income by following a strategy of reducing expenses and maximizing revenues, and this is not the case.” This can only be achieved by making governance an integral part of the structure of building a state of institutions.”
He stressed that “automation and digital transformation in the customs sector and border crossings will achieve stability, economic leaps, and stability at various levels in the short and long term, and will contribute entirely to reducing the spread of corruption in this area and cut off the path to waste and tampering with public money, because of this positive impact that lies in its importance.” Achieving protection before collection, meaning protecting the Iraqi state, society, and economy from prohibited, suspicious, and smuggled goods that are unfit for consumption and use.”
He added, "This goal will be achieved automatically through the entry of customs data into the electronic information system before the arrival of the goods, which will reflect positively on the disclosure of all details and information regarding everything imported accurately, without favoritism, confusion or delay."
Al-Nasser noted, “Whoever looks at the unparalleled support of Prime Minister Muhammad Shiaa Al-Sudani for the Customs Authority will find a significant and clear leap and improvement, and this is evident through the authority’s reports in 2023, and the increase in revenues of some border crossings that have implemented a local electronic system. This is an achievement that is ultimately credited to the Sudanese government as part of a series of successes in implementing the provisions of the government curriculum.”
Article: "The central bank announces the increase in the size of its reserves to more than $100 billion..."
That's adding a lot of money to the amount they already had... This is awesome for Iraq because having those foreign currency receivers does a great job in stabilizing your currency, supporting it and making it stronger...
Yeah, I know, we're all doing the pee-pee dance. But don't get overly excited because Iraq has a way of letting people down sometimes. Let's stay grounded. There are other issues out there that we still got to tackle. But for the most part a big chunk of what we were hoping would happen is starting to happen now...Everything is looking really good. The next thing we got to wait for is the member states to vote Iraq back into the World Trade Organization and see what it's going to take to get them on Forex...
The International Monetary Fund praises the steps of the Central Bank of Iraq to support the economy
March 03, 2024 Experts from the International Monetary Fund mission praised the measures taken by the Central Bank of Iraq, which contributed to maintaining the stability of the Iraqi economy and working to raise its capabilities.
The mission said in the final statement on the sidelines of the meetings held in the Jordanian capital, Amman, that “growth in the non-oil sector returned strongly in 2023, with inflation receding.
Growth in real non-oil GDP is estimated at 6 percent in 2023. After declining in 2022, overall inflation declined from the high level it reached at 7.5 percent at the beginning of 2023, to 4 percent by the end of the same year, reflecting the decline in food and energy prices at the international level.”
The mission attributed these developments to “the return of trade financing operations to their normal course and the stability of the foreign exchange market.
After some interruptions occurred following the implementation of new anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing controls on cross-border payments in November 2022, improved compliance with the new system led to The Central Bank of Iraq’s initiatives to reduce transaction processing times have led to a recovery in trade financing in the second half of 2023.
This has ensured that the private sector can obtain foreign currency at official rates for import and travel purposes.” The mission welcomed "the initial steps taken towards establishing the Treasury Single Account (TSA), which is a critical tool for improving cash liquidity management."
The mission praised the efforts made by the Central Bank of Iraq aimed at getting rid of surplus liquidity. The Central Bank increased the interest rate on monetary policy tools and raised mandatory reserve requirements, and also began issuing treasury bills with a maturity of 14 days last summer.
The Fund called for Supporting existing efforts by the Central Bank by consolidating unused government deposits in the unified treasury account, refraining from pro-cyclical financial policy, reducing reliance on monetary financing, and improving public debt management, noting the continuation of efforts aimed at establishing an interbank market with support. "From the technical assistance provided by the International Monetary Fund. The mission also welcomes the steps taken by the authorities to accelerate the pace of digitalization of the economy, reduce dependence on cash and enhance financial inclusion."
Central Bank of Iraq Information Office 3 March 2024
FRANK: "LIKE I SAID... WHERE BARZANI GOES... SO DOES THE MONETARY REFORM!!!"
Masrour Barzani discusses with a US Treasury official reforming the financial and banking system in Kurdistan
3/1/2024
The Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government, Masrour Barzani, discussed on Friday, with the US Treasury Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Brian Nelson, reform of the financial system and the banking sector.
A presidential statement received by Shafaq News Agency stated, “Barzani met with the Undersecretary of the US Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Brian Nelson, and the two sides exchanged views on strengthening bilateral relations and ways to support the reforms implemented by the Kurdistan Regional Government within the framework of the ninth ministerial formation.”
The statement added, "The two sides discussed reforming the financial system and the banking sector, in addition to discussing the (My Account) project and the digital transformation of public services."
