Al-Kadhimi's Advisor: social market strategy must be applied

 
Baghdad-INA
 

The Adviser of Prime Minister for Financial Affairs, Mazhar Mohammad Salih, suggested to implement a strategy that called (the social market) to provide a diversified economic system in its sources that turns Iraq into a productive power, while expecting the growth of Iraq population to reach 80 million in 2050.
 
Salih stated to the Iraqi News Agency (INA), that the population curve in Iraq still indicates a high growth of no less than 2.6% annually, which is the highest in the world, pointing out that the current high national income, which is sourced from oil, that constitutes a direct percentage of about 45 percent of its GDP, has an impact rate of more than 80% in the growth of that output.
He also added that there are more than 8 million Iraqis who receive salaries, pensions, grants, or social benefits from the state, which means that the majority of the Iraqi people receive income from oil revenues under the family support system which indicates that the majority of the population receive government income directly or indirectly, and this is a form of social solidarity, and it is still somewhat reassuring until Nowadays.
He continued, However, the increase in the country's population by one million people annually and the employment at low annual levels, will cumulatively affect the risks of disruption of production and the increase in unemployment rates among the youth, which is approximately 23% at the present time, and in a young nation in which young people constitute nearly 60% of its population.
 
Regardless of the increasing problems of poverty due to Corona pandemic, the closure of the global economy and the deterioration of oil prices in the past year, the system of salaries, government pensions have formed a safety valve in maintaining the standard of living, Salih explained.
In spite of this, there are two restrictions if the economy continues to depend on oil until 2050 without diversifying the sources of national income in it, the first: that the country's population will double and may reach nearly 80 million people, and the second: the world's progress towards the implementation of the Paris climate agreement, by making carbon emissions zero by 2050, which means the world will turn to alternative, renewable energy and the global demand for oil will fall.
he continued his speech, by saying: therefore, keeping the situation as it is will lead to the fragility of the current support system itself and the difficulty of extending it because the oil financial cover will not be able theoretically and realistically to support 80 million people in light of the current government operation and the disruption of the private sector.
He noted that Iraq has only one  solution to overcome all these upcoming economical difficulties, which is to launch a social market system  that is capable of developing the economy in terms of  manufacturing, cash crop farming, tourism and services to transform   Iraq into a diversified productive force, provided that oil revenues  shall be directed between the years 2022-2032 to funds for private productive activity and provide a courageous law for security and social protection against forms of unemployment.