TNT – “Tidbits From TNT” Sunday 11-12-2023

Tishwash:  urgent Does 2024 need a budget amendment? A Sudanese advisor answers

A financial advisor to Prime Minister Muhammad Shiaa al-Sudani revealed the extent of the possibility of the need for legislation or amendment next year, 2024, to the tripartite financial budget approved by Parliament last June.

Mazhar Muhammad Saleh told {Al-Furat News} agency, “The Federal General Budget Law of the Republic of Iraq No. 13 of 2023 represents an integrated financial plan for three years 2023, 2024 and 2025, and therefore there is no need for any new financial legislation, unless financial and economic conditions arise that require the adoption of what is required.” Adding or amending some constants and variables here and there, the government can go to the House of Representatives to approve the required partial amendments if the urgent need arises.”

Saleh added, “But until now, the financial indicators for the fiscal year 2024 show that they are stable, and that the legislation available for the tripartite federal general budget is currently sufficient.”

At dawn on June 12, the House of Representatives approved the draft financial budget law for the current year 2023 and the following years 2024 and 2025.

It is noteworthy that, on March 13, the Council of Ministers approved the largest financial budget in the country’s history, which exceeded 197 trillion and 828 billion Iraqi dinars (about 152.2 billion dollars), with a total deficit amounting to 63 trillion Iraqi dinars, taking advantage of the rise in oil prices, which constitutes more than 95 percent. % of the country’s financial revenues.   link

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Tishwash:  A Chinese visa for the citizens of Kurdistan soon and a modern park in Erbil.. A meeting between the governor and the consul

The Governor of Erbil, Omid Khoshnaw, confirmed on Sunday the issuance of travel visas to China for citizens of the region early next year, during his meeting with the Chinese Consul General in Erbil, Liu Jun, while the two parties discussed the establishment of a large park with a modern design, in the center of the city.

Statement by Erbil Governorate

On Sunday, the Governor of Erbil, Omid Khoshnaw, received Liu Jun, the Chinese Consul General. In the meeting, which was attended by the Mayor of Erbil and the Director of Erbil Parks and Gardens Engineering, the Chinese Consul General praised the progress and prosperity witnessed by Erbil and pointed out that Erbil is a historical and ancient city, and expressed his hope for That long-term friendly relations between the Kurds and China and relations between the Kurdistan region and its country develop in all fields (trade, industry, agriculture, and tourism).

For his part, the Governor of Erbil welcomed the consul and said, “China, as a major global trading country, and the presence of its companies in Erbil is important to us, and our desire is to continue developing relations with China. We confirm that, as always, our doors are open to all Chinese companies and investors, and if they want to work in Erbil, we will provide them with all Facilities.”

In another topic of the meeting, in addition to discussing the procedures for issuing Chinese visas by the Chinese Consulate, all preparations were made to issue Chinese visas to citizens in Erbil starting in the new year, and a project to build a large park with a modern design and Chinese style with an area of (15 thousand square meters) was discussed. Square) by the Chinese Consulate and under the supervision of the Erbil Governorate, and construction will begin soon. For this purpose, and in addition to identifying several places to implement the project, the Governor thanked the Chinese Consulate for its initiative and appreciated its work, which will be a beautiful gift from China to Erbil in the future. He stressed that the establishment of this park will support the environment. Healthy and increases the amount of green spaces in Erbil.

Then the Chinese Consul General officially invited the Governor of Erbil to visit China and the provinces of his country and expressed his desire for Erbil to become a sister province to his country. For his part, the Governor of Erbil accepted the Chinese Consul’s invitation and expressed his hope that the agreement would be signed between the city of Erbil and its sister Chinese provinces in as soon as possible.

In conclusion, the two sides expressed their readiness for any cooperation, coordination and facilitation to ensure the success of their work and joint projects.  link 

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CandyKisses:  jp Morgan strengthens 5 Iraqi banks

A government source said on Saturday that negotiations took place during the past days between the Central Bank and the American side, to facilitate procedures for foreign transfers, while referring to an agreement to strengthen the advance balance of 5 Iraqi banks in dollars through (jp morgan).

Intensive meetings took place in Abu Dhabi in the past few days between a delegation from the Central Bank of Iraq and the US side responsible for foreign transfers to cover imports.

The negotiations culminated in a number of decisions and mechanisms that contribute to facilitating procedures for foreign transfers related to imports through the foreign currency sale window.

It was agreed to strengthen a pre- balance of five Iraqi banks in their dollar accounts with Jordanian banks and remittances through (jp morgan).

Problems with rejected transfers were resolved and it was agreed that the rejection of transfers was based on strong reasons.

Other meetings brought together one of the UAE banks, the Central Bank of Iraq and the American side to implement the mechanism of enhancing balances in the UAE dirham for Iraqi banks (UAE Dirham pilot).

All technical details have been resolved and the mechanism of enhancing balances in UAE dirhams is expected to begin within the next few days.

There are serious negotiations that have reached their final stages to strengthen the balances of some Iraqi banks in euros at UBAF Bank (UBAF) to finance trade with the European Union.

The number of banks whose assets are being strengthened in Chinese yuan through the Singapore Development Bank has been increased.

Opening accounts for six Iraqi banks in this bank and during the coming period, 7 other banks will be added to finance Iraqi trade and imports from China, where those imports are estimated at about 12 billion dollars annually.

This mechanism is expected to contribute to financing Iraq’s imports from India, especially medicines and food, which are estimated at $3 billion.

https://964media.com/250831/

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CandyKisses:  The Central Bank achieves one of the main objectives of monetary policy in 2023

Economy News-Baghdad

The objectives of the monetary policy of the Central Bank are to achieve economic growth and stability, and one of its main objectives is to reduce inflation rates and stabilize the prices of goods and services in very complex economic, security and political conditions in 2023 that the world is going through, especially the countries of the geographical region, in which our country is negatively and positively affected.

And that these conditions have been suffered by our economy for decades and the reason is the rentier economy and the dependence of 93% as a rate of the general budget on oil, which constitutes about 60% of GDP, while the active economic sectors, namely agriculture, constitute 4.7% and industry does not exceed 2%, which are indicators that led to the lack of local production that covers the consumer need of citizens in food and other basic materials, so the dependence was almost entirely on imports for the commercial private sector and from different origins,

  BAnd successive governments could not Control of internal trade and regulation of foreign trade and weak control over illegal trade and informal border crossings, which led to the impact of the monetary and commercial market and the prices of food and necessary materials for citizens at high rates during the years 2021 and 2022, so this indicator was the most prominent challenge that faced monetary policy and directly affected the stability of the exchange rate, which led the Central Bank to take many measures in cooperation with the government in 2023 to regulate foreign trade and control control over foreign remittances.

And regularity in the global financial and banking system by developing the electronic platform and working on preparing and launching a new strategy for reform and banking classification in all its basic episodes at the level of internal and external banking transactions, the most prominent of which is securing the US dollar for large and registered traders and for each trader, regardless of his classification at the official price through the platform exclusively, which helped to reduce prices

This was achieved through the analysis of the annual inflation rate indicators for 2023, which was published by the Central Bank compared to the annual inflation rates for 2022 achieved in Iraq and in regional countries, where it is clear from official data that the annual inflation rate reached 3.7% in 2023 and 4.4% in 2022, and that most other countries with unstable economies reached Inflation rates have very high rates, reaching 80.2% in Turkey, 117.4% in Sudan, 40.0% in Iran, 9.3%, 9.0% and 5.0% respectively in Egypt, and ranged
in the Gulf countries with stable economies and rich in oil between (2.4-4.8%).

Maintaining the general level of prices of goods and services is currently working to achieve other goals, which are the stability of the exchange rate and the maintenance of foreign reserves covering the local currency in circulation and imports, which exceeded 100 billion dollars.

Therefore, the economic results and outputs confirm that the policies and measures carried out by the Central Bank this year have achieved an important goal of achieving stability in the monetary system, which is an important step in achieving the other objectives of monetary policy.