Al-Nusairi: Banks at the lever of sustainable development
Economy News _ Baghdad
Economic and banking adviser Samir Al-Nusairi stressed on Sunday the completion of the Central Bank’s procedures for the implementation of the objectives and initiatives of its third strategy 2024-2026 for the development and restructuring of the banking sector in accordance with the findings of consulting and auditing companies that currently cooperate with the Central Bank and the government in this field and that they are not content with support, but goes beyond that in the participation of 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 curriculum and the prospects of the Central Bank’s future vision for the role of the banking sector in sustainable development. In light of the current efforts to activate and develop non-oil productive economic sectors to diversify sources of national income and achieve financial sustainability, and the role of the Central Bank in regulating the financing of foreign trade 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 according to the following:
1- Developing the Iraqi banking system and complying with international banking and accounting standards.
2. Enhancing citizens’ confidence in the banking sector locally and in international recognition of its transparency and progress, and strong commitment to international standards and obtaining the trust of sober correspondent banks to deal with them.
3. Transferring banks to their main function, which is financing and bank lending for development.
4- Banks that do not provide loans and bank facilities that help in development as they are the lever of 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 the monetary economy to the digital economy and withdraw money outside the banking cycle and introducing them into the banking system.
He pointed out that all the above objectives, although the period set for their implementation in accordance with the time program of the government platform and the Central Bank’s strategy ranges between (1-4 years), what was achieved in 2023 and 2024 constitutes 60% as announced, which led to the evaluation and classification of banks based on their achievement of the planned goals. There are banks moving towards the required development and banks that still need an additional period of time to achieve the goals. There are troubled banks that are now making extraordinary efforts from the bank to the central and management of these banks to rehabilitate them.
He added that what interests us here is the real functional role of banks in providing loans and bank facilities and moving from the role of banking to the developmental role.
There are two important observations that must be taken into account with regard to the issue of providing loans and banking facilities to stimulate the economy and the first development: the nature of banks’ activities depends on the nature of the activities of economic sectors, and as long as economic activity is concentrated in trade (imports), the activity of banks remains focused on external transfer and what is associated with it, so unless other sectors (industry, agriculture, tourism and others) move.
It is worth mentioning that without control over imports, these sectors will not rise, second: it is necessary to provide the legal environment and extend the rule of law in order to control the speculative market in the US dollar on the black market and to eliminate the phenomenon of illegal trade through unofficial outlets.
