TNT – “Tidbits From TNT” Thursday 10-26-2023

Tishwash:  Ali Moneim: The Central Bank has an infrastructure that helps develop electronic payments

The Executive Director of the International Smart Card Company “K” Ali Moneim said that the Central Bank has a good infrastructure that greatly helps in developing electronic services, pointing to work with Rafidain Bank to make all electronic services done over the phone.

He stressed during the annual Iraqi banking conference in Kurdistan the necessity of keeping pace with electronic services and elevating them to the global level, and despite the challenges, we must work and make the citizen move towards electronic dealing, which is now supported and pushed by the government.

He stated that the International Smart Card Company, this national financial edifice, works with confidence to strengthen the family economy through a number of products that have won the approval of the country’s leading economists. This places the company and its partners in front of continuous development tasks, as well as its qualitative work team.   link

Governor of the Central Bank: The necessity of developing appropriate marketing plans to support digital financial inclusion in Iraq

Today, Thursday, Central Bank Governor Ali Al-Alaq urged citizens to use bank cards instead of cash, while stressing the need to develop appropriate marketing plans to support digital financial inclusion in Iraq.

The Central Bank said in a statement, a copy of which was received by Mawazine News, that “Central Bank Governor Ali Mohsen Al-Alaq chaired a meeting that included representatives of this bank and a number of electronic payment companies operating in Iraq, in which they discussed ways to follow up on the project to spread point-of-sale (POS) devices.” and digital transformation.”

He added, “The meeting reviewed the most important challenges facing the process of spreading point-of-sale (POS) devices and the importance of expanding the geographical area to cover all parts of the country, as well as solving the problems facing the use of bank cards and settling their amounts through the national exchange inside and outside Iraq.”

Al-Alaq stressed that “the spread of point-of-sale devices has positive effects on the Iraqi street,” urging “citizens to use bank cards instead of cash.”

He stressed “the need for it to be a priority for all electronic payment companies and banks,” stressing “the necessity of developing appropriate marketing plans to support digital financial inclusion in Iraq.” link

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Tishwash:  The major problem has not yet been resolved. The oil and gas law is still locked up and has not yet reached Parliament

Member of the Parliamentary Oil, Gas and Natural Resources Committee, Adnan Al-Jabri, confirmed today, Thursday, that the oil and gas law is still under the Cabinet’s agenda and has not yet reached the House of Representatives to vote on it.

Since the first session of the House of Representatives, in 2005, the draft oil and gas law has been stuck in drawers, as disagreements prevent its approval in its final form.

Al-Jabri told {Al-Furat News}: “The oil and gas law is still on the list of the Council of Ministers and has not yet reached Parliament, but there is follow-up from specialized committees formed by the Council of Ministers.” 

He added: “When the law reaches Parliament, it will be given a first reading and then it will be discussed and studied by the committee to be presented for a second reading.” 

He pointed out that “it is not possible to talk about transferring the project because it has not yet reached the House of Representatives and the Cabinet committees are discussing it in the presence of the governorates responsible for writing up the draft law and voting on it in the Council of Ministers and then sending it to Parliament.”

Iraq exports an average of 3.3 million barrels of crude oil per day, and black gold constitutes more than 90 percent of the state’s treasury resources. 

The draft oil and gas law in Iraq available to Parliament stipulates that responsibility for managing the country’s oil fields must be entrusted to a national oil company, and supervised by a federal council specialized in this subject.

Prime Minister Muhammad Shiaa Al-Sudani said, in early last August, that “the draft oil and gas law is one of the basic and important laws, representing a factor of strength and unity for Iraq, and it has been stuck for years, at a time when the country today is in dire need of its legislation and to benefit from this natural wealth, in “All fields and sectors, in addition to the contribution of the legislation to solving many outstanding problems.”

He explained that “there are governorates whose wealth has not been invested to date, which is considered negative for development endeavors in all their paths,” according to a report by the “INA” agency.

The dispute over the issue of oil has been a major source of tension between Baghdad and Erbil for years. Last year, the matter reached the judiciary, as Erbil believed that the central government was seeking to seize control of the region’s wealth, according to an Agence France-Presse report.

In February 2022, the Federal Court in Baghdad ordered the region to deliver the oil produced on its lands to Baghdad, and to cancel contracts the region had signed with foreign companies.

The matter reached the point where the judiciary in Baghdad invalidated contracts with many foreign companies, especially American and Canadian companies.

A temporary agreement signed between Baghdad and Erbil in early April stipulates that Kurdistan oil sales will be made through the Iraqi Oil Marketing Company “SOMO,” while revenues generated from the region’s fields will be deposited in a bank account with the Central Bank of Iraq or one of the banks approved by the Central Bank of Iraq. link